


I'd Have You In A Heartbeat

by starstruck1986



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-04-07 13:12:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 33,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4264479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starstruck1986/pseuds/starstruck1986
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He hates it, because he knows how she feels. How much she hurts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Pairing(s) / Characters: Ron Weasley / Mystery Canon male, slight Ron Weasley / OFC  
> Contents / Warnings: Angst, language, unrequited love

“Can I fucking go home yet?” Ron moaned, pressing his fingertips into his eyeballs.  
  
He'd lost track of the time, but would have taken bets that his head was throbbing in time with the passing seconds.  
  
The heat wasn't helping. He was generally pretty kind to the maintenance workers that kept their Ministry warren ticking but he was at the point where could have quite merrily throttled the first one he came across. A malfunctioning spell had caused the entire left half of the atrium and attached offices to reject their climate control spells, leaving everywhere sweltering.  
  
He'd even considered a career change to get to work over on the right with blissful, cool offices.  
  
Up above them, London was melting in an unusually hot spell of weather. Normally descending underground brought a degree of respite.  
  
 _Not any fucking more!_  
  
“Merlin's cock, it's two in the morning.”  
  
Ron grunted. He didn't have the energy to form anything else in response – even his thoughts seemed to be slurred. When he took his hands away the room was blurry. They'd been holed up in it for hours, poring over paperwork for clues.  
  
“The glamorous life of an Auror, eh?”  
“Glamorous my arse” Ron slumped back in his seat. “My robes are irretrievably stuck in my crack. And I'm pretty sure that my pits could knock a troll out.”  
“Go home, Weasley. Have a shower. Get some sleep. Because I'm a nice boss, I'll not expect you in 'til noon tomorrow and not a second before.”  
  
Ron stared at the witch who served as his immediate manager. She met his gaze and slightly lifted her eyebrows, challenging him.  
  
Even if he'd not been dog tired, he wouldn't have risen to the bait.  
  
Eventually she laughed and shook her head. “I'm joking. I know you're on leave from the second you get out of here tonight. This morning, even.”  
“Yeah and I might not bloody come back.”  
“I will string you up by your balls if you try to leave.”  
  
Ron rolled his eyes.  
  
He was too tired for it. The blatant and inappropriate flirting of the witch in charge of him had been a problem for some time and normally he could deflect it with some skill. But at two in the morning at the end of a fourteen hour shift, with his robes sticky with sweat and his eyes bloodshot, he didn't have the temper for it.  
  
“I'm leaving now.”  
  
He bumped against the desk as he stood up and hissed at the pain which stung his thighs.  
  
“Careful now, Weasley. Don't want you out of action.”  
“That's what the leave is for.”  
  
He slung his bag around his torso and checked his wand was in his sleeve.  
  
“Night.”  
  
Making for the door, freedom was such an exciting prospect he felt lightheaded. He had to bite his tongue hard to keep from swearing as warm fingers caught his wrist as he passed his boss.  
He didn't pull away. The years had taught him a lot about sensitivity and empathy. Plus his work life would be bloody awful if he pissed her off.  
  
But he wasn't about to fall into her lap and swoon.  
  
“I know. I know I make you uncomfortable. I'm sorry for that, Ron.”  
  
The use of his given name over his surname caused heat to prickle at the neck of his robes. Keeping hold of his wrist, she stood up.  
  
“And I also know that nothing's going to happen. I just can't help myself sometimes. Have you ever felt something for someone you have no chance of having?”  
“I'm reasonably familiar with the concept.” He'd not meant to sound sarcastic, or harsh, but as she flinched at the words he realised he had been both. “Sorry. Yeah. I know it.”  
“Then imagine working with that person, having to guide him, having to be the one who bollocks him when he's too depressed to put his heart into the job, or is late because he spent the night lying awake rather than taking a sleeping draught...”  
  
Ron looked away, knowing that he was blushing an unflattering shade of red.  
  
“You don't bollock me,” he muttered. “Even though you should.”  
“I know. And imagine being the person who gets to praise him, who gets to make him smile that sunny grin but doesn't get to hug him and kiss him and...”  
“Don't,” Ron begged, shaking his head. “Don't finish that sentence. Don't make me feel worse than I already do for not being able to give you what you want.”  
“Even if you wanted to, we're colleagues. And we've both worked too hard to get where we are to let a relationship ruin our careers.”  
“Then why are you saying any of this?”  
“Because...” she shrugged. “Because hearts are totally shit at following workplace rules. I'd have you right here and right now and I'd never regret it. Even if someone walked in on us and I got the sack. I couldn't regret it. I'd be getting everything I've wanted for four years.”  
  
Ron tried to speak but found his throat painfully tight.  
  
“I'm sorry to be such a disappointment.”  
  
Finally, she released her grip on his arm and Ron curled his fingers around his bag strap for something to cling to.  
  
“Go home,” she advised. “Before I do something I can't take back.”  
  
It took Ron a while to understand why he wasn't running for the door. Why he stood in front of her with a gormless expression. It was because it was tempting. It was tempting, the thought of soft hands running over his naked body. To hear whispers in his ear. To have someone who wanted to share intimacy with him. To feel tingles of pleasure not followed by sadness – brought on by another person.  
  
“Go,” she murmured. “Please. I'll see you when you come back. Have a nice holiday.”  
  
Ron nodded and finally managed to force his legs to work. He felt her eyes on his back all the way to the door and even though he knew it wouldn't help her, he had to turn and look at her.  
  
In his formative self and younger years, he would have considered himself the luckiest man on earth to have her attention.  
  
“I wish I could give you what you want.”  
“I wish you could too.”  
“I'm sorry I'm so... fucked.”  
“You're not. I'd have you in a heartbeat.”  
“I wish he felt the same.”  
  
She nodded, blinking rapidly.  
  
Ron didn't think he could stomach her tears. He turned and left, passing through the swing doors of the Auror Office and out into the corridor.  
  
***  
  
The sky appeared a lilac colour through the glass of the bathroom window. Ron had nowhere to be the next day, so when he'd finally made it home he'd headed straight for the bathroom, peeled off his damp clothes, socks and heavy-duty uniform boots and left them all on the floor whilst he showered. He had the water temperature down so low that he was shivering.  
  
The conversation with his boss was on replay in his head. He'd tried to drown it out but had no luck. The wireless was playing but he could barely hear it through the water pouring down over his body.  
  
He couldn't get the image out of his head of the two of them in bed together, which was odd as he'd been very definitely gay for at least three years, and partially so for many before that. He had no idea why the thought of her breasts was so appealing. He stared at some discoloured grout as he thought about squeezing them with his hands – could even imagine the scrape of her nipples on his palms as they hardened. The scent of her at the end of a long day, like the one they'd just had.  
  
They'd spent too much time together for him to be able to instantly conjure that smell.  
  
Eventually the thought came to him to turn the water off and go to bed. His jaw was aching from his chattering teeth.  
  
He made it to wrapping a towel around his body before his will finally broke and he ended up sitting on the toilet, hand clamped to his mouth, trying to hold back sobs.  
  
He'd not planned anything for the leave he'd only taken to make it look like he had some semblance of a life beyond his scarlet Auror robes. Nothing more than lying in bed, sporadically turning over and finding something new to stare at.  
  
Part of the reason he felt so terrible about the situation with his boss was that he knew exactly how she felt, except he had received far more from the man he was in love with than Ron had ever given her.  
  
There'd been romance. Sex. Happiness. All before fear had nudged between them and wheedled away until there was an unbridgeable chasm.  
  
Ron hadn't heard from him in two whole years. But he never stopped hoping – checking the post obsessively on returning home from work. Leaving the Floo open for as long as possible, just hoping that he might have changed his mind.  
  
So far, he hadn't. Ron supposed he probably never would.  
  
“I miss you,” he whispered, to nobody.  
  
When there was no reply, he stood up and towelled himself dry. He crossed the landing back to his bedroom and dropped the towel on the floor by the bed as he climbed in. The darkness was absolute compared to the bathroom. The sun was rising on the other side of the house. He closed his eyes and tried to let the tension go from his muscles, starting from the feet up. He'd reached his abdomen when a loud thudding on the front door made him jump.  
  
 _-fin-_


	2. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He had no idea it was coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pairing(s) / Characters: Ron Weasley / Harry Potter, mentioned Ron Weasley / Severus Snape, slight Ron Weasley / OFC  
> Rating: R for this chapter (language)  
> Contents / Warnings: Angst, language, unrequited love

He'd considered ignoring it, but after a few minutes the thumps on his front door had become fairly frantic and the noise was hurting his brain.  
  
Ron paused at the turn on the stairs to light some candles. He gave the person on the doorstep one last chance to give up and go away but if anything they only banged harder. Pulling the belt on his dressing gown tight, Ron wiped at his eyes. His limbs moved of their own volition; he was beyond tired – beyond consciously functioning.  
  
He tripped off the bottom step in his haste to stop the racket.  
  
“I need to sleep,” he muttered to himself. “Need to sleep.”  
  
Fiddling with the locks, each thud against the door seemed to break straight through his skull to further his brain ache.  
  
“Hang on a fucking minute!” He cried finally, hissing as his fingers slipped painfully over the metal.  
  
Finally he managed to get everything unlocked and yanked the door open.  
  
“Do you fucking know what time it is?” He spat.  
  
He wasn't really looking at who had been so desperate to gain access. A cool breeze blew about his ankles and up under the skirt of his dressing gown. He shivered.  
  
“Ron.”  
  
Disappointment made his chest hurt, but it was nothing new. He'd known it wouldn't be _him_ at the door, but as a man who never blocked his Floo just in case, Ron always had hope.  
  
 _And that makes you a right fucking mugwump, doesn't it?_  
  
“Harry, what're you doing here?”  
“I need...” Harry swayed on his feet. “I need to speak to you.”  
“Now?” Ron yawned. “Harry, I've not been to bed yet.”  
“Yes now. Now. God knows it's taken me long enough to work up the fucking courage so yeah, Ron, you can listen to what I've got to bloody say whether you're asleep or not.”  
“Okay.”  
  
Ron stared at his best friend of nearly twenty years and couldn't recall seeing him in such a state for a very long time. Not since the war. Immediately the same feelings came flooding back – of being useless, of being unable to shoulder the brunt of the pain for his best friend – being unable to make it better.  
  
Harry sniffed, swallowed and took a deep breath.  
  
“Want to come in?” Ron asked, stepping back. “D'you want something to drink?”  
“Nope.”  
  
Harry clumsily made his way into the house and took a left into the sitting room. Ron stared after him, completely bemused. Eventually it occurred to him to shut the door and follow. He found Harry pacing up and down in front of the fire place.  
  
“I quite like that rug, you know,” Ron joked, trying to lighten the mood. “Sit down.”  
“I can't.” The words were forced.  
“All right, but calm down, mate, you're freaking me out.”  
“Well this isn't going to get any better, so you'd best prepare yourself.”  
  
Frowning hurt his head, but Ron was unable to keep his facial muscles relaxed. A flicker of candle light caught Harry's own expression and revealed red rimmed eyes and pale, unhealthy-looking skin.  
  
“Have you been drinking?” Ron asked.  
“Of course I've been drinking.”  
“Oh.” Ron nodded. He wasn't one to talk.  
“Right. Right.”  
  
Harry seemed to be gearing himself up for something and Ron waited with raised eyebrows. After pacing up and down a few more times, Harry stopped and turned to face him, folding his arms in a protective barrier over his chest.  
  
“I know that you're still hung up on him. I know you're waiting for him to wake up and to come back to you and that you're going to live happily ever after with him.”  
“I'm waiting, but it won't happen, Harry.”  
“Well... it could. And I can't deal with the thought that it might and that you would never have known... never know that I...”  
“That you what?”  
  
Harry opened and closed his mouth, somewhat like a gaping fish. Ron waited but his temper was beginning to flare.  
  
“Fuck it.” Harry's hands fell to his sides. “I thought I could do it. I thought I could _say_ it. Motherfucking hell. Fuck.”  
“Don't let my mother hear you talking like that, you'll have to give your Golden Boy badge back to Bill.”  
“THIS ISN'T FUNNY!” Harry half-roared at him. Spit flew through the air. His eyes were so wide that he looked deranged. “I'm sitting here, watching you waste yourself and moping around over him and I can't say what I feel because I can't face the thought of you saying no!”  
“Saying no to what? Harry, help me, I'm really fucking confused here. Please.”  
  
There was an exasperated growl and suddenly Harry was right _there_ , suddenly so close that Ron could smell the Ogden's on his breath and see some crumbs stuck in the corner of Harry's mouth.  
  
“I've kept my mouth shut because I didn't want to be hurt. And I didn't want to hurt you. But fuck this shit now, because it's four in the morning and I'm so drunk I can't feel my teeth. Ron, please...”  
“What?” he whispered, unable to tear his eyes away from Harry's gaze.  
“I want you. I'm in love with you.” Harry's words would have been inaudible but for the lack of space between them.  
  
“Harry...” Ron shook his head in dismay. “You can't be.”  
“I think I'd fucking know.”  
“But you're... you're...”  
“Straight?” Harry laughed. He looked slightly maniacal again. “Maybe. But I don't think so, not where you're concerned.”  
  
Ron felt like someone had kicked him in the balls. “But... when? How long?”  
“When he left you. When you were so _fucking_ sad and nothing could make it better, not me, not Hermione, not even that all expenses paid trip to the Maldives we went on. You were broken, and for the first time ever it was up to _me_ to fix _you_ and I couldn't do it... and then on top of that failure, I went and bloody fell in love with you too.”  
  
He shook his head helplessly. His eyes were wide, pleading and terrified all at once.  
  
Ron didn't know where to start. Words refused to come and he knew his mouth was hanging open in shock.  
  
“Say something,” Harry begged. “Say anything. Tell me to get out. Tell me you don't need this and I'll go and my god I'll never bother you again-”  
“Harry-”  
“Just be kind when you do it. I don't think I can deal with-”  
“HARRY.”  
  
Ron did the only thing he could think of and seized Harry in a full-body hug. He gripped him tightly in his arms and put his chin on Harry's shoulder. He didn't let go. Eventually Harry's frame softened and he hugged him back.  
  
Letting one hand stroke soothingly at the base of Harry's spine, Ron closed his eyes.  
  
“I'm sorry.” It was almost a whimper.  
“Don't be sorry.” Ron squeezed a little tighter and turned his cheek into Harry's hair.  
  
Words seemed to fail then. Harry fell silent and Ron let him, listening only to the sounds of their breathing. So early in the morning there was nothing to be heard on the road outside. Ron glanced over and saw that dawn was creeping ever closer. He remembered all of a sudden just how tired he was.  
  
But he would be damned if he pulled away from Harry with him so distressed. No, Harry would have to be the one to break the embrace. He tried to take the time to process what was happening. He'd gone from one lot of inappropriate flirting to something in another world entirely but equally disturbing. Harry was his best friend. Harry was heterosexual. Harry was engaged to his sister.  
  
And yet there Harry was, in his arms.  
  
“I hate him for what he did to you,” Harry said quietly. His tone was nasal and stuffy – Ron guessed that if he looked he would find him crying. “I hate that he hurt you so much and that you're just waiting for him like a loyal fucking puppy. That all he'd have to do is show up and you'd roll over and welcome him back because you're so in fucking love with him you'd not be able to turn him away.”  
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Ron cringed as his joke landed badly.  
“You would, though. You love him. I've never seen you more in love with anybody. And I just wish you looked at me the way you looked at him.”  
  
Harry broke away then, putting his hand up and wiping his eyes beneath his glasses. Ron had been right – he had been crying throughout their hug.  
  
 _Cuddle. That counted as a cuddle._  
  
“It's late.” Harry sniffed hard. “I should go. You look like shit. You need to sleep.”  
“You can't just leave,” Ron said incredulously. “Not after this. You're in no state to be wandering about the city anyway. Stay, Harry. Stay with me.”  
“No.”  
  
Ron felt something throb within him as tears brimmed over and ran down Harry's cheeks.  
  
“No, I can't stay. Not unless I know that there's something at the end of it. That I won't leave this house and then never be welcomed back. If it ruins everything between us... I don't think I could...”  
  
Desperate to keep Harry where he could protect and look after him, Ron reached out and grabbed one of his hands. He laced their fingers together.  
  
“Harry. I had no idea that you felt this way. I'm sorry for being... blind. Or just... ignorant. I dunno. I'm sorry that I didn't see it. That you got in such a state.”  
“I'm not in a state,” Harry protested pathetically. “Oh, fine. Whatever. I'm a big fucking mess, there we go.”  
  
Ron couldn't help himself; he chuckled. Something in his smile seemed to help Harry as he too ended up cracking a small grin.  
  
Without thinking, Ron reached up and tucked Harry's hair behind his ear. Harry turned his cheek into his palm.  
  
“Come on,” Ron murmured, stepping closer. “Let's go to bed. I'm fucking shattered. I've only been home from work for an hour and that was... work has been...”  
“I know she wants you,” Harry blurted awkwardly. “It's obvious. The way she looks at you.”  
“I know. But... nothing would ever happen there.”  
“Because you're still waiting for Severus.”  
  
Hearing _his_ name from the mouth of someone who had just confessed their affection for him made Ron feel slightly sick.  
  
“I'm not special,” he said finally, feeling very confused. “I'm not worth this. You. Ceri. You both want someone you think exists but doesn't, not any more. All I am is a twat who waits with an open Floo and spends his spare time staring at walls. Crying. Because the only person I wanted didn't want me back. I'm _pathetic._ What's _wrong_ with you, Harry? To make you want me?”  
  
Harry blinked hard a few times and then, without any trace of apology, said, “You're a fucking idiot, Ron.”  
“Yeah, exactly, that's what I'm trying to say-”  
  
His words were muffled by the kiss that Harry planted on his mouth. A soft mewl rumbled in the back of his throat; the sound shot straight to Ron's groin.  
  
He could not only smell the Firewhiskey, now he could taste it. He could taste _Harry_.  
  
And Harry was intoxicating.  
  
He let Harry lead the kiss, let him choose when to deepen it and how much pressure to apply. It contented him to be led.  
  
“Please, stay,” Ron begged. “Stay with me.”  
“I want to.”  
“Then stay.”  
  
Making sure he had a firm grip of Harry's hand, he pulled him out into the hallway and then up the stairs. There was no real resistance, only shy hesitancy and Ron went slowly, every step of the way giving Harry a chance to bolt if that was what he truly wanted.  
  
He left the candles burning on the landing but the bedroom was in darkness. Harry came to a halt by the bed and Ron turned, wordlessly putting his fingers to the task of undressing his friend. Harry kicked off his trainers and out of his jeans and then, with Ron in his dressing gown and Harry in his pants, they clambered into bed, still hand-in-hand. They settled close together on the mattress.  
  
Ron had no idea how to deal with the situation. But it felt good, lying there next to another human being, feeling their warmth and their willingness to be so close to him.  
  
“Can I...” Harry trailed off, embarrassed.  
“Can you what?”  
  
A soft kiss pressed into the corner of his mouth and Harry cuddled into him.  
  
“I love you,” Harry murmured.  
“I love you too,” Ron whispered back, turning his head to kiss Harry on the forehead.  
  
A relieved sigh tickled his ear. Harry seemed to relax simply on hearing that Ron loved him – regardless of the context.  
  
Ron swallowed. His head was pounding and he could see his pulse in his eyes, even in the dark.  
  
“Fuck,” he mouthed silently at the ceiling.


	3. Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ron wonders how much further he can go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contents / Warnings: Angst, language, unrequited love, anal sex

_Curses flying. Death everywhere. The scent of blood thick in the air.  
  
Screams. Whimpers. Sobs.  
  
It was all around, the reality of mortality. Ron felt sick to his stomach.  
  
He was running but he had no idea why. His legs were fully extended, pounding over earth which was scorched black in some places, still glowing orange in others. He was steaming towards the lake, lungs straining for air and pulse thudding in his ears.  
  
The water didn't stop him. He crashed into it, hollering at the cold as it splashed up over him. He slowed to a stop when the lake was up to his waist. His robes billowed around his body. Behind him an almighty thunder crack sounded. He jumped and turned towards the castle, high up on the rocks. Parts of it, too, were on fire. There were flashes coming from within. Parts of the walls had been blown away. He started to shiver.  
  
He clenched his fists and had no control over the scream which broke out of his mouth. It echoed across the grounds. Nobody answered it.  
  
Frustration. Anger. Terror. Blind fury. Sadness. They looked set to consume him. Another scream followed the first. His hands hit the water in a massive splash. It took him some time to realise that his mouth hadn't shut, and that he was practically howling at the sky which was full of thick smoke and cloud; no stars were anywhere to be seen. Nobody was watching over them that night and surely nobody was listening to his screams.  
  
Or so he thought.  
  
“Hush, you'll wake the dead with that racket. Let them sleep, Ron. Let them have the rest they've earned.”  
  
Ron froze, for the first time fully appreciating just how cold the lake was. His skin prickled.  
  
There was something different about the man on the shore. Something ethereal in the pallor of his skin, of his height and the way he stood. Ron had never seen Severus Snape stand so proudly.  
  
“No,” he whispered. “No. No. NO. You lived! You definitely lived!”  
  
Severus jerked his shoulders in a small shrug. “There is only now, Ron.”  
“No, you lived – we came back for you, we saved you – I -”  
“I am dead and gone. I will be buried shortly, I assume. Will you weep by my graveside, Ron?”  
“No, because you're not dead.” Ron started to crash back through the water to the shore.  
  
The lake ran in tiny streams from his clothes. By the time he was on the muddy bank the skirt of his robes were stuck to his legs and made it difficult to walk. He staggered slightly and lost his balance. He fell onto his knees in front of the man he had shared some of the best years of his life with.  
  
“I never should have left you.”  
  
Severus' fingers gently stroked the top of his head. Ron let out a little moan of pleasure.  
  
“Don't be dead,” he whispered. He pressed his face into Severus' robes. They smelt just like he remembered. “Don't be dead.”  
  
Suddenly the only thing his face touched was the air. He was alone._  
  
Ron lurched upright, hands clawing wildly at the air. The bedroom was roasting. With his chest heaving he took several seconds to recognise where he was. That it had been a dream.  
  
He leapt out of his skin when a hot hand clasped around his forearm.  
  
“Fucking hell!” He cried aloud, turning to look at Harry, who was sprawled on his back and trying to focus his eyes. “Harry. You scared the shit out of me.”  
“You all right?” Harry asked, his voice thick with sleep. “You were thrashing about for ages.”  
“I'm...” Ron didn't want to say 'fine' because that would have been a complete lie. His innards felt like jelly. “Just a shitty dream, is all.”  
  
Harry released his arm and rubbed his fingers over his eyes. Ron let his gaze travel down his friend's body, taking in the dark hair over his chest and belly. Suddenly he _remembered._  
  
“Shit,” he muttered in disbelief. “Harry. What are we going to do?”  
  
Harry waited until he had sat up and scratched his fingernails over his scalp before he answered. “I don't know.”  
“Helpful.” Ron rolled his eyes.  
“It took a lot of booze for me to come here last night.”  
“Regretting it yet?” Ron asked, unable to keep from smiling.  
“To be honest, I think I'm still a tiny bit drunk. No regrets. Yet.”  
  
Harry leant over and kissed Ron's shoulder. He lingered there, keeping his lips in contact with the skin. Ron reached out and put his hand on a duvet-covered thigh.  
  
“You can run if you want. I'll forget you ever said anything and we can all go back to normal.”  
“You can go back to miserably waiting for Severus to come back and sweep you off your feet, even though last I heard he wasn't even in the country?”  
“I can't help it, Harry. I love him. I always will until I get some sort of closure. Or he comes back.”  
“But he's not going to come back, Ron.” Harry wriggled until he was on his knees looking directly into Ron's face. “He's too proud to admit he made a mistake and...”  
“And what?” Ron countered.  
“I don't think he ever cared as much about you as you did about him. And you deserve more than that.”  
“That's manipulative as fuck, Harry. You've got no idea the things we shared in private. What was said. Don't bat your eyelashes at me and think you can wipe him out.”  
  
Harry had the grace to look ashamed of himself.  
  
“And here's something else, you filthy hypocrite. My sister? Remember her? Five foot five of pure wrath when provoked? You've been with her for years?”  
“Don't.” Harry's voice took on a steely edge. “Don't try to make me feel bad.”  
“You _should_ feel bad! You came here, kissed me, slept in my bed and there's someone at home waiting for you, worrying about you.”  
  
Harry laughed derisively and shook his head. “Believe me, she doesn't give a fuck where I am. She's never at home. She won't notice.”  
  
He leant forward and kissed Ron on the lips.  
  
The passion and fervour of the early morning had gone. Ron softly returned the kiss but it finished quickly. Harry's eyes were big green orbs as he waited.  
  
“You love me.” Ron chewed on the inside of his cheek.  
“For my sins. I do.”  
“But I'm in love with Severus.”  
“Who's never coming back.”  
“You don't know that.”  
“It's pretty fucking clear. Wake up, Ron. Wake up and see it. See what you're worth more than moping around this house with a face like a slapped arse.”  
“Insulting me isn't going to help you, Harry.” Ron groaned and fell down onto his back.  
  
He flung his arm up over his eyes to hide. He wanted to be alone. He wondered how he could politely tell Harry to get out of his house.  
  
But even as the words brewed on his tongue, he wasn't sure whether he really meant them.  
  
It had been so good to sleep in someone else's arms. To share sleepy kisses. To _not_ be alone.  
  
He grunted with pain as Harry straddled his hips and grabbed his hands, pressing them into the pillow on either side of his head.  
  
“C'mon, Harry. This isn't the answer.”  
“Then what is?”  
  
Ron didn't have an answer for that. When Harry kissed him again, it was with some of their lost energy. Harry's tongue was slippery against his own. The thought of it sliding in and out of his mouth made Ron hard. Harry ground down into his body.  
  
“I will do everything I can to make you happy, Ron.” Harry murmured the words into his ear. “I'll do anything. Go anywhere. Be anyone you need me to be. Let me. Let me, Ron.”  
“But this is all so... fucking... complicated!” Gasps of pleasure punctuated his words as Harry started to nibble on his neck. “Harry. Harry. Stop. _Stop._ ”  
  
Harry did as he asked but remained on top of him. Ron swore as he took all of Harry's weight onto his body, desperately needing the loo. Harry hid his face; Ron wrapped his arms around him.  
  
His mind showed him his nightmare on replay.  
  
“Severus was in my dream,” he mumbled. “He was dead. At the Battle.”  
“I thought you'd stopped having nightmares about that?”  
“So did I.” Ron shrugged. “Guess not.”  
“Do you dream of him often?”  
  
Ron hesitated. The answer was more than he would care to admit to another. But it was Harry, who had been so open with him. Always been there for him.  
  
“Normally once a night, if not more. He's never been dead before though.”  
  
Harry sighed and looked up at him. “He really fucked you up, didn't he?”  
  
Ron could only nod in response – his throat was suddenly tight.  
  
***  
Fucking Harry was nothing like being fucked by Severus. Nothing.  
  
Ron had been reluctant to go there. He'd meant what he'd said that morning – that it was complicated - _too_ complicated – but just being with Harry throughout the day had sweetened his mood and when Harry had made the necessary moves, Ron had been open to them.  
  
And there he was, hands gripping slim hips hard, sliding his cock tantalisingly slowly in and out of The Boy Who Lived's backside.  
  
It wasn't the first time that afternoon, either.  
  
Harry was marvellous. He shivered at Ron's touch. He moaned at his kisses. And every time Ron slid home inside of him, he veered between groaning and sobbing with pleasure. If there had been noise during his times with Severus, Ron had been the one making it. Severus himself had been like a pillar of stone yet had somehow stirred such fever in Ron that he was thinking about it whilst fucking someone else.  
  
 _Stop it._  
  
“Ron...”  
  
Ron had never found his name to be particularly nice, let alone sexual, but in Harry's voice it was unrecognisable.  
  
He ducked his head and licked along the curve of Harry's spine.  
  
“Fuck me harder...”  
“Are you sure?”  
“Dead sure.”  
  
Ron grinned to himself as he sped up, delivering the pace and pressure that Harry seemed to want. His noise increased, interspersed with panting and swearing. The words coming out of his usually fairly modest mouth made heat prickle behind Ron's ears. Out of the two of them, he was the swearer. He had taught Harry his choice swear words as an eleven-year-old. He couldn't help it as one of them choked out of his mouth as Harry's body started to tense.  
  
“Gonna c-come.”  
“Mmhmm. Do it...”  
  
He pulled Harry close and held on tight as he proceeded to do just that. Ron tucked his face into Harry's shoulder and closed his eyes, trying to absorb every whimper and pant. Every shake.  
  
“Fucking hell.” Harry sagged against him, eventually spent. “Did you...”  
“Uh-uh.” Ron kissed Harry's neck.  
“It was meant to be your turn,” Harry muttered softly.  
“I'm good,” Ron insisted. “Really. Sometimes... sometimes it's about getting to the finish, not the finish. If you know what I mean.”  
“Not really.”  
“Y'know... where the sex is so good that you just don't want it to stop, and it doesn't matter if you don't come because it's fucking amazing as it is.”  
  
Harry became very quiet in his arms.  
  
“And you want the other person to do it.” Ron went on, babbling with his eagerness to explain, “Because nothing means as much to you in that moment as their... pleasure. Ugh. I hate that word. But it's true.”  
“And you... you felt that way about me?”  
“Sometimes, you're as bloody thick two short planks, Harry.”  
“It's nice to be told when someone wants you.”  
  
There was a melancholy to that which prevented Ron from asking for elaboration. He wondered – and not for the first time since Harry had shown up drunk on his doorstep – just how long things had been off between him and Ginny.  
  
As her name crossed his mind, Ron glanced at the clock and sighed. It was four in the afternoon.  
  
 _Been a long while since you were having sex at this time of the day._  
  
  
“Harry, will anyone be missing you?”  
“Not likely.”  
“So... what are we going to do then?”  
  
Harry seemed to get the wind back in his sails as he pulled away from Ron. He let out a stunted series of 'oohs' as Ron disengaged from his body with the motion.  
  
“Okay. So that's weird.”  
“You get used to it,” Ron promised.  
“I'm sure I will.” Harry looked over his shoulder and grinned. “You're good in bed.”  
“I try.”  
“I think you need some practice though. A bit rusty?”  
“You cheeky fucker!”  
  
Ron grabbed a pillow from the head of the bed and slammed it without hesitation into Harry's mid-section.  
  
***  
  
Nerves jangling, Ron mooched about his tiny kitchen searching for the last of the calming draught. He was sure he hadn't used it. His mind was never very clear after a sleepless night and a bottle of Firewhiskey.  
  
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he hissed, trying to fight the shivers which overcame his body.  
  
His clothes were scant. Whatever he could find in his struggle to get out of the bedroom without waking Harry or drawing attention to himself in any way. An old t-shirt and his pants.  
  
“Fuck's sake!” Ron swore finally, admitting defeat. “Fuck you.”  
  
He leant back against the worktop and put his face in his hands. It had been bad enough when he only had his own misery to contend with. But the overwhelming truth was that he was desired but not by the person he wanted to desire him.  
  
Ron had long known that he was in love with a man who was unlikely to come back. As Harry had pointed out, Severus wasn't even reported to be in the country. Ron knew that as an Auror with access to the logs of all magical traces currently within the country. Severus' name and Wizarding Identification Number had not been on those lists for months.  
  
 _He went as far away as he could to get away from you and your fucked up head that couldn't just leave well enough alone. Because you couldn't just be happy that he was with you. You had to ask him to fucking love you._  
  
He slammed the heel of his hand into his forehead and kept hitting. Each hit was for his stupidity with Severus; his stupidity at letting Ceri, his professional superior, develop feelings for him; for sleeping with Harry.  
  
For all of them, he was still standing alone in the kitchen in his pants. When he went back upstairs to bed, he would share it with Harry but would still feel alone. Because what could there be with Harry given their shared lives and their history? Choosing between Harry and his family would likely break him beyond repair.  
  
He felt broken enough.  
  
Ron held his breath and listened to the house settling around him. It was dark again. He had no idea of the time. There was a gnawing in the pit of his belly. Hunger. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten.  
  
Ron slouched away from the counter and crossed the kitchen. He knew where he was going before he consciously acknowledged his movements. He sat down on the sofa and slumped backwards but kept his eyes trained on the fireplace.  
  
Somehow, watching the Floo made him feel better. It soothed his nerves.  
  
He hated that.


	4. Part IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another night, another body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contents / Warnings: Angst, language, unrequited love, heterosexual sex

It had taken forever to get Harry out of his bed, but Ron had done it, heaved a massive sigh of relief and then scorched himself in the shower to try and stop his skin crawling.  
  
It seemed so _wrong_. It _was_ wrong. Whatever Harry was feeling, it was not the same as what he felt, and by indulging him Ron knew he was just digging his grave deeper and deeper. He'd turned off the shower consumed with hatred for his life, for Severus for fucking him up and for Harry, for putting him between a rock and the hardest of hard places.  
  
And at that moment, he hated himself more than anything, because he was running on Ogden's finest single malt and standing in front of a wooden door, knowing that when it opened he was likely to make the biggest mistake of both his personal and professional lives. He heard muffled steps from behind the door and his heart skipped a bit. Heat prickled at his collar and at his wrists. He felt sick as locks were undone on the other side of the wall.  
  
“What're you doing here?”  
“I'm tired of being a disappointment,” Ron said quietly. “And if you want to... I want to...” he gestured feebly with his hand.  
  
Ceri raised her eyebrows at him and folded her arms over her chest. She was wearing a dressing gown and her hair in a towel. She was pink in the places that he could see.  
  
“Ron. I think you're forgetting that at last year's Christmas party, we both gyrated against one of the serving staff and we had very different ideas of which one of us would be doing the fucking.”  
“Ceridwen.”  
  
He used her full name because he knew it would unsettle her; that it would spark a little fire in her eyes. _And suddenly you're the king of manipulation._ Ron had been manipulated enough himself; he could find no conscious decision in his mind to suddenly start treating others in the same way, but there he was – on his boss' doorstep, pleasantly drunk for courage, offering up his body for sex with a witch who could sack him.  
  
He stepped forward, took her in hand and kissed her.  
  
 _Oh, that's soft._  
  
It had been a long time since he'd kissed a woman. It was more pleasant than he remembered. For her part, Ceri let the kiss continue, drawing herself up to her full height to try and prevent Ron from having to lean down too much, and her hands came up to grip his forearms. She held on tightly but did not push him away.  
  
Ron was utterly confused about his body's reaction. Kissing her wasn't mundane, as he had imagined it might be: it was pleasurable and his body's responses were just as keen as they had been to Harry's touch mere hours before.  
  
 _Harry. Shit._  
  
He desperately tried to bat away the image of his best friend and work colleague and near enough brother-in-law as it came to mind, but mind-Harry, like real life Harry, was persistent. Driven by the urge to get rid of him, Ron pulled Ceri close to him, putting his arms around her and cuddling her into his chest. She moaned at the contact and reached up to cup his cheek in her palm.  
  
“Can I come in?” Ron eventually whispered, nosing against her. “Please say yes.”  
“I don't know what you think this'll achieve. I shouldn't let you in.”  
“I know you shouldn't. But I'm here and I'm asking you to. So please, Ceridwen. Please?”  
  
She let out a loud, frustrated sigh and stepped out of his hold. “Come in. Make yourself at home. I'll be back.”  
  
She disappeared out of the sitting room, which, Ron found, was cosily decorated and filled with a large corner sofa and several books. He sat down primly on the edge of the vast, squashy settee and waited for her to return. When she did it was with the towel missing from her head, her hair brushed out to sit damply over her shoulders, a bottle of wine in one hand and two glasses in the other. She was still wearing her dressing gown – a thin, light cotton number on account of the summer heat.  
  
Ron stunned himself by actively trying to imagine what was under it, helped massively by the clear outline of her breasts beneath the robe. She moved past him to get to the corner of the sofa, depositing the wine and glasses on the coffee table as she went. She didn't bother to pour any, however – she simply sat in silence. It took Ron a good few moments to realise that she was waiting for him to speak.  
  
 _Well, at least I'm still shit with women._  
  
“Shall I pour some wine?”  
“Leave it. I don't know why I brought it out. I don't want any.”  
“That's not like you,” he commented, without thinking.  
“If I weren't so worried about you, I'd thump you,” she informed him. “Because that was low.”  
“Sorry. I wasn't... I didn't mean anything by it. Just that you're always my partner in crime when I need a drink at the end of the day.”  
“The attraction is spending time with you, not the alcohol.”  
“Not even that time we went to that Muggle bar and got drunk on Tequila slammers, when I inhaled a lime slice and nearly choked to death?”  
“Oh, and we told the MediWitch at St Mungo's some bullshit about you accidentally swallowing it whilst trying to marinate chicken.”  
“Why did we bother with the chicken?” he asked, bemused.  
“I don't know, Ron, we were shitfaced.”  
  
He cracked up then and so did she. It took some time for their snorts of laughter to die away.  
  
“I still can't look at limes,” he muttered as an aside.  
“Good, you clearly can't be trusted with them.”  
  
He snorted again.  
  
 _This_ was what he had sought, he realised. Friendship. Laughter. Peacefulness.  
  
He huffed and slumped backwards. He rolled his head to the left to look at Ceri.  
  
“That kiss was...”  
“Are you looking for praise or a kick up the arse?”  
“Not sure.”  
  
She stared at him.  
  
“It was beautiful,” she said softly. “And I'd ask you to do it again if I didn't know that it's absolutely not what you want at all.”  
“But I do want it, and that's what I don't understand. I wanted Harry and I didn't, I still slept with him anyway.”  
  
He didn't realise what he'd said until it was too late – Ceri gaped at him.  
  
“You slept with Harry? Harry as in _our_ Harry? Your best friend? Your sister's fiancé?”  
“I'm not proud of myself,” he assured her. “I fucking hate myself.”  
“How did that even happen?” she asked, shaking her head with dismay. She put her legs up underneath her and turned towards him. “I mean...”  
“In my defence, he started it.”  
“He came onto you?”  
  
Ron nodded and shrugged to convey his surprise, even after everything he and Harry had done together.  
  
“Y'know I never would have had him down for... wanting that,” she finished delicately. “So is he finishing with Ginny?”  
“No fucking clue.” Ron shrugged again. “He waltzed into my house, manipulated the fuck out of me and then somehow, I was balls deep in him going for gold.”  
“Do you think I'm someone else?” Ceri laughed uncertainly. “Because I didn't need that much detail.”  
“Sorry.”  
“Don't be.”  
  
Unable to bear not having anything to do with his hands, Ron put one out and put it on her knee. She was roasting to the touch.  
  
“What do you want me to say to you, Ron?” she asked, sounding tired. “Do you want me to ask you to go but fuck you instead and then we'll go our separate ways? And we'll just pretend it never happened when you ultimately realise that you're gay again?”  
“I know,” he ground out. “I know. I'm sorry.”  
  
He needed to hide his face – it was beyond red. He pitched forward and somehow managed to land with it in her lap. His ears tingled at the thought that only a thin piece of cotton was separating him from her privates.  
  
Ron jumped slightly when a hand carded through his hair.  
  
“Did you come here because you thought I couldn't resist? That I wouldn't ask questions, I'd just jump into bed with you and deal with it in the morning?”  
“No.” Ron spoke even though his words were muffled by her legs. “I know you're not... I know that this would hurt you...”  
“I'm glad, because it would. But I'm still thinking about fucking it all and doing it anyway because somehow, I know this is my only chance.”  
  
She stroked Ron's hair again and he turned his cheek into her thigh. One finger traced the outline of his ear. He started at the sensation of her dipping the tip in and out of the outer canal. His surprise turned into a full blown shudder; she immediately stopped.  
  
“That was good,” he whispered. “It felt good.”  
  
He pushed himself to sitting and looked at her – really looked at her – he found her eyes bright with moisture and her cheeks flushed.  
  
“I'm sorry,” he murmured. “This was stupid. I'll go. And I'll request a transfer at work so you never even have to see my face again.”  
“You'll do nothing of the fucking sort.” She grabbed his wrist and held it tightly in her fingers. “No.”  
  
He could have sworn she pulled him by the wrist, but maybe he went willingly; either way, he moved up to kiss her easily and it was not like the chaste kiss they'd shared by the door.  
  
Her tongue was in his mouth and her hands were under his shirt. Her fingers seemed content to explore every inch of his upper body without pause. Hesitantly he put his own hand to the gap on her chest left free by the dressing gown. He waited for assent, or some kind of hint that he should continue. In the next second, she had pulled open her dressing gown and he was looking down at the first female body he had seen naked for a good while.  
  
It was softer than Harry, all angles and hardness. She didn't carry any extra weight on her frame, but there was a soft beauty about her that Ron had yet to find in any of the men he had been with. And there was more warmth pouring from her than there had ever been from Severus.  
  
 _Nope, not again._  
  
Ron pushed all thoughts of Severus from his mind by sliding one hand down in between Ceri's legs, and feeling.  
  
***  
  
A bludger must have come into the bedroom and whacked him around the head. It was the only explanation that Ron could come up with as to why he felt so bloody awful. He was gasping for a drink but every time he moved, his head threatened to split down the middle with pain. The room he slept in smelt all wrong – too feminine and sweet. He knew it wasn't his bed.  
  
 _Oh, fuck._  
  
His eyes flew open and he rasped a few breaths in shock. The night before came back to him in particularly vivid flashes which made him want to curl up and die, except he couldn't, because he didn't have the energy.  
  
“Morning.” A soft kiss was pressed to his brow. “You look terrible.”  
“Feel it,” he grunted.  
  
“I made you a coffee,” she said timidly. “Thought you'd need the caffeine.”  
“Uh-huh.”  
“Ron?”  
“Talk to me. You're going to the bad place. I know I'm not much of a catch but, c'mon, it can't have been _that_ bad.”  
“You were amazing.”  
“Such lies.”  
  
He hoped she was smiling. He couldn't see because his eyelids had drifted shut without him instructing them to do so.  
  
“Do you remember much of last night?”  
“I'm starting to.”  
“Would you like a pillow to scream into?”  
  
Ron tried to hold his head up long enough to scowl at her. “It was great, Ceri. Stop it. You were amazing.”  
  
She blushed and looked down at her own coffee, curled in her hand and resting on her thigh.  
  
“Not so bad yourself,” she muttered; when Ron looked she was wearing a dirty grin.  
  
It was his turn to blush as he rolled onto his back and blinked at the ceiling.  
  
“I have to go to work,” Ceri said quietly, as if she knew what loud words would do to his head. “But I didn't want to leave without talking to you.”  
“No.”  
“Even if I don't have the foggiest about what to say.”  
“Me either.”  
“Then...” she shrugged and sipped her coffee. “Maybe we shouldn't say anything at all.”  
  
Ron swallowed on a thick throat.  
  
“I'm sorry.”  
“What for?”  
“Turning up here. This.”  
“I'm not sorry.” She shook her head. “It was everything I thought it would be. More. Because before I never hoped you would ever feel anything for me... those fantasies, they were all one-sided. And then there you were, you wanted me and we had one another and... I don't think I'll ever forget it.”  
“That bad, eh?” Ron made a face.  
  
She didn't bother to dignify him with a response. She sipped her coffee again and stared pointedly at the wall.  
  
“I'll get out of your hair. As soon as my head stops trying to implode.”  
“Stay. I need to get to the office but I trust you. Just close the door when you're done. Sleep. You look like shit.”  
“And I love you too,” he retorted cheekily, without thinking of to whom he spoke.  
  
The smile on Ceri's face became rather fixed and her eyes turned sad. “I wish you meant that.”  
“You know what? So do I. I really fucking do.”  
  
And Ron knew he meant that, because he felt safer in this relative stranger's bed than he had done for months. He felt accepted there; cared for.  
  
Ceri drained her mug of coffee and got to her feet.  
  
“What are you going to do?” Her next question came after a few minutes. He'd listened to the sounds of her dressing whilst staring blankly into space, thinking about what they'd shared.  
  
He'd forgotten the wet heat which came from burying himself in a woman's body. No amount of lube would replicate that feeling with a man.  
  
“I don't know. Did we-”  
“Yes.”  
“How'd you know what I was asking?”  
“Contraception?” she did up the buttons on her work robe. “Next logical place for your brain to go I guess. We did. Don't worry.”  
“Pretty sure you were responsible for that, so thank you.”  
“You were a complete gentleman. It was... nice.” She smiled coyly to herself. “Look. I'm late. I've got to go. But this was...”  
  
She had no words, apparently. She knelt on the bed and leant forward to kiss him on the forehead. “Thank you, Ron?”  
“Why are you thanking me for hurting you?”  
“First morning in a long time I don't feel hurt. I reckon that's got something to do with you.”  
“For how long?”  
“I'll take it for as long as it gets. Don't fret. I'll see you when you come back to work.”  
  
She smiled at him again and Ron stared back at her..  
  
“You're amazing, you are.”  
“No. I'm an idiot who fell in love with someone she couldn't have and has been lucky enough to get just a tiny piece of him to keep as a memory. If Severus came back for you, and you had one night, wouldn't you cherish it?”  
  
Ron couldn't bring himself to answer; he'd do more than cherish such an occasion.  
  
“D'you want some advice, Ron?” she asked quietly.  
“Sure. I'm bad at making decisions lately.”  
“If you ever want to escape from him – from the pain in your mind, you've got to go to him and have it out. Demand answers. Why he left. Why he's not come back. You have to stand your ground and let him know that this isn't okay. That you're suffocating under the silence and fear and pain. He has to know what he's put you through. At the very least, you owe yourself a trip to see him to stop you from sleeping with anybody else close to you.”  
“I can't do that.” Ron ignored her dig about sleeping with too many people. “If he lays into me, I'll fall apart.”  
“And then you come back here, and Harry, your brothers, me – everyone, we'll put you back together again. And we can all send that greasy prick some of my cat's choicest turds in the post.”  
  
Ron was so fogged up and confused that he didn't smile at the joke. Ceri sighed.  
  
“I don't even know where he is,” Ron admitted. “I think he's out of the country.”  
“Sometimes, I worry about your brain, Ronald Weasley. Where do you work?”  
“The Auror office.”  
“And what do Aurors sometimes do when they're not buried under a mountain of paperwork and Obliviating Muggles?”  
“... Drink?” Ron asked.  
  
Ceri slapped his arm and said, “We trace people, you twat. If anyone can find Severus Snape on this planet, it's your own bloody department. Honestly. Anyone would think you worked in the canteen.”  
“I couldn't ask...”  
“You don't have to. I've got a meeting that I'm already late for, but after that, I will personally go to the Personnel Bureau and I will ask for the whereabouts of Severus Snape. I'll send a note through the Floo to let you know what I've found. Stay here until then. Sleep some more. Have a shower. Eat. Whatever you want. But I'll send you the approximate location within fifty feet and you'll have to track him from there. Sound okay?”  
  
Ron just stared at her in awe.  
  
“You'll catch flies if you're not careful, shut your mouth.” She got off the bed and brushed down her robes. She picked up her bag.  
“Ceri...” Ron sat up. “I just wanted to...”  
“No need.”  
“But-”  
“Take care, Ron. Promise me you'll take care.”  
  
***  
  
 ** _Where are you? I need to see you!_ ** Harry's stag Patronus pawed anxiously at the ground before disappearing into thin air. Ron didn't pull his wand out to respond.  
  
He was sat tucked into Ceri's corner sofa, a piece of parchment clamped in his fist. An address in the Lakes. He was sure on the Horcrux hunt they'd been near the town. He remembered amazing scenery, a biting wind and icy rain.  
  
He couldn't even face standing up, let alone the journey to Cumbria.


	5. Part V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's not entirely sure he can handle the truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Contents / Warnings: Angst, language

He had never wanted to run more. He'd faced death. He'd made death a reality for people standing opposite his wand. But nothing came close to the fear he felt standing across the road from an unassuming, normal enough looking house, the address of which was written on the parchment clenched in his fist.  
  
 _You're a bloody idiot. This is a stupid idea. Go before anyone sees you._  
  
The words had been on repeat in his minds for what felt like forever. Despite their warning and encouragement, his feet refused to move from the pavement. The possibility of seeing Severus again after two whole years of white noise was too powerful to fight.  
  
It was much cooler up north than it had been trapped in the city. Goosebumps broke out along his forearms and he wished he'd grabbed an extra layer on his way. Not that he could have; he'd come straight from Ceri's flat and hurried as though someone had lit a fire underneath his backside. Ron huffed and looked around. The area seemed quiet. Pretty. He could hear traffic and birds, laughter somewhere nearby, calls of market traders not too far away.  
  
It wasn't where he would have expected Severus to settle, however. He'd been convinced the wizard would move to the middle of nowhere and live happily ever after, his only neighbours the local wildlife, farming livestock and the odd rambler. Ron supposed it felt odd to imagine Severus living in a town because that could potentially lead to having to socialise – and Severus had never been particularly good at that.  
  
He recalled a time when they'd gone out for dinner with some of his brothers; Severus had sat straight-backed in his chair all evening and barely said two words. And then, when they got home, Ron had asked him why he'd bothered to join them in the first place. It had been one hell of a fight.  
  
The front door of the house across the road suddenly opened and Ron stopped breathing. His throat went dry and he blushed, feeling caught out – as if he'd been found somewhere he shouldn't be.  
  
It was him all right. Dark hair, bent head. Thin frame, tall and somewhat spindly. Pallid skin.  
  
 _Those fucking eyes._  
  
The urge to bolt, which had been so prominent before and faded slightly, rushed back to him and Ron started. His movement caused Severus to look up. His eyes widened with shock when he realised just what he was seeing.  
  
Ron felt like he was about to vomit, but he was walking. He crossed the road on autopilot, sparing no thought for any oncoming traffic. Severus was reeling him in, just like he always used to, and Ron was letting him.  
  
Severus remained frozen in the doorway, keys in hand.  
  
He came to a halt on the kerb, mere feet away from the man he'd been obsessing over for two years. Severus looked exactly the same, except for few dashes of silver starting to show at his temples. He bit his lip and waited for Severus to say something – anything; but he seemed as rattled by the situation as Ron felt.  
  
“I found you,” Ron said finally, more to himself than Severus.  
“Yes.”  
  
Ron shivered as a breeze crept up his back.  
  
“I was just going out,” Severus said, his words stiff and overly formal. Ron could remember them being that way at the beginning, too.  
“Ah... um. Do you want me to come back?” And there he was, mumbling and hesitating, just like he had at the start, too.  
“What do you want?”  
“To talk to you?”  
“Silence for two years and now you want to talk to me? Well, you always did have terrible timing. I was just on my way...” Severus looked guiltily away.  
  
Ron thought he could guess what that guilt meant.  
  
“Oh. I see.” He cleared his throat. “I'll just go home then. It's fine. Nice to see you.”  
  
He turned and started walking away, feeling dazed.  
  
“No.” Severus was suddenly by him, his fingers wrapped around Ron's upper arm.  
“I wouldn't want to inconvenience you,” Ron muttered.  
“You never could.”  
  
His heart lifted at the softly spoken words and Ron allowed himself to be guided back towards the house and over the threshold. The inside was light and airy. It looked barely lived in.  
  
“I haven't been here long,” Severus said, catching the curiosity on Ron's face. “Only a few days.”  
“I didn't think you were in the country, and then...”  
“I wasn't,” he confirmed. “But unfortunately every now and then I do need to return to England to deal with things like financial matters and making sure that I keep in touch with a select few.”  
“You never thought about making me one of them then?” Ron couldn't help but sound a little bitter at the thought of Severus popping back from wherever he was living to see people. “Not once in two whole years?”  
  
The frown on Severus' face didn't make sense to Ron. There was no denial nor confirmation. Eventually the older wizard sighed and folded his arms over his chest.  
  
“Why are you here, Ron?”  
“Because I've had enough.” Ron swallowed and tried to repair the croak in his voice. “I needed some closure.”  
“Excellent, perhaps you'll share and then we can all get on with our lives.”  
“Seems like you have anyway.”  
“This?” Severus looked around the room. “This is a few days' rental. It's nothing.”  
“And you were going out to meet someone.”  
“Your point is?”  
  
Ron closed his eyes and sighed.  
  
“Have you been the perfect penitent celibate since we last spoke?” Severus asked; Ron recognised that he was being taunted – as he had once loved to be taunted. “Have you been practising the art of deprivation?”  
“Actually, no.” Ron lifted his head and rolled his eyes. “I've fucked nearly everyone in London trying to get over you. My cock's come up here for a break, see. It's exhausted.”  
  
It wasn't that much of a lie, Ron thought, given all his times with Harry and then Ceri.  
  
It pleased him to see annoyance written plainly in Severus' expression – to see what he remembered as jealousy in his dark eyes.  
  
“I don't know who you think you are,” Severus snapped finally. “Coming here, talking about closure – as if you were the one who had been discarded and forgotten about.”  
“Well, yeah, actually, I was- wait, what?”  
  
It was his turn to frown. He shook his head. “What do you mean, you were abandoned and forgotten about?  
“You were the one that sent me a message to meet me at King's Cross and then never bothered to turn up?”  
“What?” Ron asked again.  
“You sent an Owl. Said you had something to tell me and a surprise. To meet you there. You never arrived.”  
  
Ron blinked several times and, when he came up trumps, he stood open-mouthed.  
  
“I didn't send you a note. I didn't have anything, surprise or otherwise. Nothing to say, except...” The end of the sentence faltered on his tongue. He'd dreamt of being able to say those three words again – he didn't want them tarnished by the look of loathing and disbelief which had taken hold of Severus' expression.  
  
“I'm no longer interested in anything you have to say and I certainly don't want to play any more games. I thought, after all this time, you might have come to apologise or at the very least explain, but if you're content to stand there acting the gormless idiot, you're quite welcome to let the door hit you on the way out.”  
  
The words were delivered with such icy precision that Ron was suddenly thrown headlong into the past – into every fight they'd had which made him feel about a foot tall. Severus had a special talent for making him feel like nothing. He'd felt like nothing for two years simply in his absence.  
  
“Whoa, hang the fuck on. You left _me_ ,” Ron burst out. He drew breath and cut Severus off as he continued. “You were nowhere. There was no note, no indication of where the fuck you were. You didn't turn up for dinner and then I never heard from you again. And I just sat there and waited for you. For two years. I couldn't find you, Godric only knows I looked – bent every fucking rule my workplace had to track you – but you weren't in the country. And now you're here, telling me that I left _you?_ No fucking way!”  
  
“I don't have time for this. I'm late.”  
“Don't want to disappoint him, then, like you did me?”  
“It's none of your business.”  
  
Something hit Ron then – a mix of nausea, terror and the dawning realisation that perhaps he had wasted the last two years of his life moping needlessly.  
  
“Are you saying that you didn't leave me?” He asked softly. “That you thought I had left you?”  
  
Severus gave a curt nod.  
  
“I didn't send you that owl. I didn't have anything to tell you. No surprises to give you. I just thought we were meeting for dinner the next night. Why didn't you contact me when I didn't turn up?”  
“I _did_. I sent you at least ten owls in a two day period. I sent you Patronus messages. I thought... I thought you were ignoring them.”  
“I didn't get any of them. I honestly didn't know. I didn't. Oh my god. Why did you stop trying?”  
  
Severus looked sad as he answered. “Why would I continue? I had what I thought was complete wireless silence from you. It seemed as though you were sending a very clear message. I thought it was over.”  
  
A lump in his throat, Ron fought to speak. “But it's been so long. Why didn't you come looking?”  
“I didn't think that would be welcome.”  
“Fucking hell.”  
  
Ron stared around the little sitting room, anger building in his blood. How had it all gone so wrong?  
  
  
“I did try to send you letters later on,” Severus went on. “A few times. But they were all returned to me marked 'return to sender'. None of them had been opened. Again, I thought that was your way of telling me to leave you alone.”  
“I have _never_ wanted you to leave me alone!” Ron cried. “I've spent the last two years heartbroken. Actual romance novel 'taken to his bed' shit. I couldn't function. It's a miracle I'm still here!”  
  
Severus opened and closed his mouth. He shifted uncomfortably where he stood.  
  
“I wanted you to be happy. I thought that... with everything. Your family. My... problems. Our past. I thought you had finally decided that none of the issues were worth it and you wanted to start again.”  
“I didn't give a shit about any of those things.”  
  
Ron knew immediately what Severus was talking about. The unease of his family about their relationship – the fact that no matter what they did, Severus had never been completely welcomed into the family with open arms. Severus himself struggled with his temper. There had been times when Ron had questioned whether he should stay because of it – whether they were on the brink of sliding into an abusive relationship. And on top of all those things, there had been the fact that they had been through a war, supposedly on opposite sides. There were things that neither of them could forget – that they could not easily relegate to the sidelines, regardless of trying.  
  
“I loved you,” Ron breathed. “I didn't know I could love like that. Until you.” He shrugged. “What the fuck happened?”  
  
He sank down on the sofa that was conveniently nearby. He felt dizzy.  
  
Severus came and sat next to him. “I don't know.”  
  
They sat in silence for quite some time, until Severus broke the spell with a small cough.  
  
“So... you didn't want to end it?” Ron asked tentatively.  
“Far from it. I was as... devastated, I suppose, as you said you were. I thought the surprise would be the suggestion that we should live together. Or maybe that...” Severus trailed off, a dull pink tinge appearing in his cheeks.  
“That what?” Ron prompted kindly.  
“That you wanted to ask me to enter into a bond with you. Marriage. Handfasting, maybe.”  
“What would you have said?”  
“To which?”  
“Either.”  
  
There was a pregnant pause. “I would have said yes to either question. I found myself wanting it. Which made it all the worse when...”  
“You thought I didn't want you anymore and that I'd done a runner. Shitting hell.”  
  
Ron rubbed a hand over his face and peered out from between his fingers. Severus was watching him closely. As if no time at all had passed, Ron reached over and snaked an arm around Severus' waist. He shifted along until there was no space between them. Tingles broke out all over his body.  
  
“I'd rather not,” Severus said coldly. “I can't go through it again, Ron. It's over. It's been over for two years and I... I have burnt some bridges mentally that cannot be rebuilt.”  
“Then we'll build a new one entirely.  
“I'm done, Ron. The person I was going to see – he's a companion, nothing more. We sit and read the papers in a cafe like two lonely old men who don't speak except to bemoan the state of the world. I don't have it in me to be anybody's lover any more.”  
“What about just being someone's beloved grumpy old man, then?”  
  
Ron allowed himself a smile in victory as a smirk twisted Severus' lips.  
  
It didn’t last long. Severus' facila muscles slackened and in his eyes Ron saw something which scared him more than anything that had happened up until that moment – he saw resignation. He saw sorrow.  
  
He saw, quite plainly, that it was too late, and that it was over.


	6. Part VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You can find peace in the strangest of places, Ron realises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter contents / Warnings: Angst, language, hand job, mentions of past BDSM activity, alcoholism, unhealthy relationship, briefly described het sex.

The chill of the day had given way to a colder night, and as Ron came to, he realised he was freezing. He blinked into the darkness, wishing the blanket which covered him was thicker, hoping to fall straight back to sleep again.  
  
Immediately his brain flooded with information – he was in Severus' house, Severus had not abandoned him, Severus thought that _he_ was the reason they weren't together any more.  
  
And, most cuttingly of all, Severus seemed to have committed to the idea that they were completely finished. Ron was hopeful that being allowed to stay in the house – albeit downstairs whilst freezing his backside off – was a start at battering down any defences the older wizard had put up against him.  
  
As it was, they'd spent the rest of the day together; sometimes they had sat in silence, letting the pressure build until one of them reset the clock by blurting something out. They had eventually ended up progressing into catching each other up on what they'd missed of their lives. Ron had squirmed quite substantially when it came to admitting how he'd spent their time apart – lonely, miserable and borderline suicidal.  
  
It hadn't been easy to see Severus' reaction to that news. Ron had forgotten what it was like to see concern in the eyes of someone you desperately wanted to care – which seemed stupid, because he knew he was surrounded by people who cared about him.  
  
Ron rolled onto his side, tugging the blanket with him into a tighter cocoon around his body. Aches raced into every joint and muscle as he turned.  
  
He'd halfheartedly hoped that Severus would throw caution to the wind, kiss the daylights out of him and then throw him into bed. But he wasn't an idiot. The emptiness of the two years apart had forced him to grow up – and beaten such childish optimism out of him.  
  
 _Not entirely. I mean, I did pine for him for two years._  
  
Cringing, Ron reached up to rub at his eye. With each passing second he become more and more awake. Sleep wasn't going to take him back any more easily than Severus would. He pushed himself up on one arm and tried to make out the sitting room in the dark.  
  
“Lumos,” he muttered.  
  
The light stung. He took some time to get his bearings and then put his feet on the floor, which was cold.  
  
He knew he should get his shoes and leave. Nothing good would come of being trapped in Severus' house for the rest of the night when there would be no further interaction between them for hours.  
  
Pulling the blanket tight around his shoulders, Ron got to his feet and limped slightly on an aching leg and hip. The leg he'd broken at thirteen, dragged under a tree by Sirius. The hip he'd fallen on during an Auror raid in his second year and managed to dislocate.  
  
“As good as new my arse,” he muttered under his breath and struggled out into the hallway and into the kitchen.  
  
He conjured more light and paused to look out of the back window. Splashes of rain caught the glass and he held his breath, listening to the sound of the falling moisture which the South had been so devoid of. He looked around. It could have been anybody's house. It didn't have to be Severus' house, but knowing that it was – even just for a short time – was strange. There were none of the odd little quirks that Ron remembered. No empty potions bottles drying on the draining board. No stacks of books or half-read potions journals. No dirty wine glasses on the side, abandoned and waiting to be washed for the next pour.  
  
The alcohol had been a part of the difficulties in their relationship. Severus' temper got worse after a few glasses and Ron struggled in the face of it with weakening emotional resilience. It was a dangerous combination.  
  
Even still, Ron had been prepared to work through that. To work through the animosity from his family, who never quite understood what they had or why it worked. Ron would have walked to the ends of the earth for Severus Snape.  
  
 _Probably still would._  
  
“Twat,” he huffed at himself.  
“Morning to you too.” The words were raspy with sleep and Ron jumped.  
  
Severus stood in the doorway, tousle-haired and puffy-eyed.  
  
“Did I wake you up?” Ron coughed away a croak in his own throat.  
“No. Truth be told I haven't been to sleep.”  
“Oh.”  
  
Ron shifted his weight between his feet.  
  
“Ridiculous really, attempting that with you in the house. Like my brain could willingly shut off after... today.”  
“Sorry. I'll go.”  
“I don't want you to go. If I wanted you to go, I would have seen you out hours ago.”  
“But you put me on the sofa-”  
“And I thought that was the right decision. Because the thought of you lying down next to me, curling in to me like you always used to do... and then losing that again... I absolutely cannot cope with that. Not the idea of it, not the reality of it... I can't. I c-can't.”  
  
Emotion surged in his voice and Ron swallowed and looked away.  
  
“But at the same time, I can't let you go.”  
“Why not?”  
“I wondered what my life would be like if you hadn't left me. Don't argue-” Ron had opened his mouth to protest. “I wondered what we would have had. Where we would have lived. I told myself that if by some chance you ever did come back, I would never let you go again.”  
“You said you'd burned bridges mentally that you couldn't rebuild?”  
“And I have. What we had will never be again. But it doesn't mean it can't happen another way, or that that way wouldn't be better.”  
“So what are you saying?” Ron sighed. He was shattered – far too tired for a conversation of such importance in the middle of the night. Severus was pushing him into emotion and he knew he didn't have the wherewithal to keep it pretty.  
  
In their time together, Severus had never once seen him cry.  
  
Ron thought he would like to keep it that way.  
  
“I don't know.” Severus shrugged. “I honestly don't. But I can't sleep and it's because of you, and you're here and you're real and you're the man I have loved more than I knew _I_ could.”  
“Don't lie, Severus.”  
“I'm not lying.”  
  
Ron stared at him. He wondered whether he should point out the picture of Lily Evans which, last he saw it, was sitting in a frame on Severus' bedside cabinet.  
  
“When you left... I had too much time to evaluate my life. Mistakes. All the years spent in misery. You were the only light I could find in one long continual slew of catastrophes from the age of seven upwards.”  
“That's really fucking sad, Severus.”  
“Tell me about it – how do you think it felt to realise that I had found the best thing to happen to me, and then suddenly find he was gone?”  
“But I wasn't gone! I thought you were gone!”  
“And if I ever find who did separate us, I will kill them.”  
  
There was such a steely glint in his eye that Ron didn't doubt that he was being truthful. He was feeling quite murderous towards their mystery enemy himself.  
  
“So what now?” Ron threw his hands up. “I'm here, asking you to...”  
“To what?”  
“Love me again, and then you say no, make me sleep on that bloody torture device of a sofa and then come back down here and tell me I was the best thing to ever happen to you. Mind fuck much?”  
“I know. I'm sorry.”  
  
Severus' face seemed to crumple with his apology and it disappeared behind a hand. The fingers were as potion-stained as Ron remembered.  
  
A particularly filthy memory of sucking them to lubricate them before they worked up his arse floated across his brain.  
  
He had the good grace to blush slightly.  
  
“What are we going to do?” Severus' voice was timid – meeker than Ron had ever heard it before.  
“Well you need to make up your mind, firstly. Do you want me or do you not?”  
“I have always wanted you.”  
“What are you waiting for then?” Ron raised his eyebrows. “I'm not standing here for my health, Severus. I'm freezing. I'm knackered. I'm about thirty seconds from melting down and bawling on your kitchen floor.”  
  
“Believe me, I want you.”  
“Then what's stopping you?”  
“I... I have a very different life now to the one which you remember.”  
“Try me.”  
“I barely spend long enough in each country to make a home. One day I'm here, the next I'm there and I don't have time for-”  
“A relationship?” Ron raised his eyebrows.  
“I was going to say drama.”  
“Why d'you automatically go to drama?”  
“Because it was always dramatic, wasn't it?”  
“Yeah. But you were the creator of seventy-five percent of it, Severus.”  
“A fact I acknowledge and apologise for. I've stopped drinking.”  
“Fuck.”  
“I thought I'd chased you away by turning into my father.”  
  
Ron swallowed a particularly painful lump in his throat. From what he knew of Severus' father, there had been ample room for comparison, but he would never say it. He would never hurt him in that way.  
  
“I can see it in your face that I'm not far wrong.” Severus' shoulders slumped.  
“No!” Ron cried awkwardly. “No. I don't think that. Maybe I did a few times when... when things were hard but I would never _say_ that.”  
“But you thought it.”  
“But isn't that what being in a relationship is all about? Thinking things and never saying them because you know the damage the words will do?”  
“Many would say a healthy relationship is based in truth.”  
“And about the important things, it is – but don't make this about giving me a stick to beat you with, Severus, and don't take my thoughts to swing at me!”  
“I'm not-”  
  
Severus held one hand up and Ron's voice, which had risen without him noticing, cut off.  
  
“See? Drama. We lasted what – ten hours?” Severus shook his head. “I'm too old for it now, Ron. I'm sorry.”  
“But you started it!” Ron protested. “As ever. For fuck's sake Severus. We have the chance to change everything – to claw back two years we both consider a waste. We can start over. We can...” He felt his control starting to slip and he turned away, blinking rapidly and swallowing hard.  
  
He stared out of the window again but became distracted by Severus' reflection in it. Behind him, the older wizard was stood with his face in his hands. Ron's first instinct was to go to him - to offer comfort. But something stopped him – either his tiredness or his realisation that there was no quick fix, he assumed. He remained where he was, clutching the blanket around him, pretending not to be able to see Severus' pain.  
  
 _And that sums up your entire fucking time together really, doesn't it?_  
  
Severus had never acknowledged the things that Ron had been party to – the fits of temper, the drinking, the inability to cope with the cards that life had dealt to him.  
  
He jumped when Severus put his arms around him from behind. He held his breath, trying to commit every second to memory – when they'd first split, he'd been distressed by the fact that he couldn't remember how it felt to be held by him. It had slowly come back as the months went on, but it had been a moment of blind panic when he realised that shock had robbed him of the memory.  
  
“Breathe, you idiot,” Severus muttered into his ear. “Let's not go to the hospital so early on.”  
  
Ron did as he was told and with the exhale he found himself putty in Severus' hands. His limbs seemed useless. His head was swimming.  
  
“This shouldn't feel so... normal.”  
  
Ron moaned in response and tipped his head back, his scalp prickling as it came to rest against Severus' cheek. The fire spread slowly throughout him as the grip around him tightened. One arm came up to clamp across his chest and Ron spared a thought for how stupidly fast his heart was beating. Severus couldn't miss it.  
  
As warm, dry lips mouthed across the tender flesh just behind his ear, he shuddered. Severus paused.  
  
“If you don't want this, say so now.”  
“Why the fuck would I say that?” Ron squeaked.  
  
It was the first time in a long time that the hardness in his pants was welcome and enjoyable.  
  
Neither Harry nor Ceri had been _bad_ at sex – they had certainly managed to give him pleasure. But the touch of their fingers had not set him on fire as Severus' had; their kisses had not driven straight to his groin as Severus' had, either.  
  
He loosened his grip on the blanket and turned, crushing their bodies together whilst pulling the fabric out of the way. He shook it out behind Severus' back and then used it to trap the wizard against him.  
  
They were kissing. He winced as their teeth clashed and as his nose awkwardly bent against Severus' face. His bum pressed into the worktop, where Severus had herded him.  
  
“Fuck.” It was more of a moan which was squeezed out of him as Severus' body applied more pressure to his groin. “Fuck.”  
“Still the mouth of a sailor, I see,” Severus whispered in his ear. “Do you still make that delicious sobbing noise when you come?”  
  
Ron blushed harder than he could ever remember blushing and didn't answer.  
  
“I'll take that as a yes.” Severus nipped the skin of his throat and Ron blushed harder as he whimpered.  
  
He closed his eyes to the sound of dark chuckling as the waistband of his jeans came open and the zip slid down. Severus pushed them down a few inches but then turned his attention to Ron's pants.  
  
“I'm not your first call today, obviously,” Severus said tightly.  
  
 _Shit._  
  
“I'll tell you later?” Ron pleaded. “She means nothing.”  
“ _She?!_ ”  
  
Ron closed his eyes. “I was desperate. I needed to feel.”  
  
He certainly did just that as Severus' fingers wrapped around his cock and squeezed. He gasped and rose up on his toes, pushing his crotch out to find more friction.  
  
“Did it _feel_ as good as that when she touched you?” Severus hissed the words directly into his ear as he started to pump up and down.  
“No!” Ron insisted, shaking his head for emphasis.  
“What did it feel like, being inside a woman after so long? Or was she not the first?”  
“She was the first... f-for a-ages!” Ron stammered out the words, trying to hold on.  
“Was it good? Damp and... hot. Swallowing you up.”  
  
Ron could barely remember what Ceri looked like. In his head, Severus' words were a direct description of how his mouth would be, sucking him hard and rough.  
  
“Did she let you come inside of her?”  
  
He had no idea why Severus was showing so much interest. As far as he knew, Severus had locked his heterosexual tendencies up in a box and lost the key. He knew the man didn't like labels – that he would never willingly admit to being bisexual or anything else for that matter, but never once in their relationship had he spoken of sex with a woman as seductively as he was at that moment.  
  
“Y-yes.” Ron panted the word. He was so dizzy.  
“And what did you prefer?” Severus gently bit into his earlobe. “Fucking her, or being fucked by me, on that night in that... hotel.” Ron thought he knew why Severus had hesitated to describe it as that – it had been more like a fetish dungeon with rooms kitted out for certain tastes to be rented by the hour, by the night, by the day. “Over... and over...”  
  
Ron closed his eyes and tipped his head back, feeling the start of _it_ deep in his belly.  
  
“I think about that night often.” Severus kissed him. “I think about you, strung up, sweating like a pig... swearing at me, hating me... begging me...”  
  
He remembered. He had begged for it to stop, for Severus not to stop, for it harder, for it faster, for more pain, for less pain, for a moment to breathe, for his breath to be taken away.  
  
He'd left the next morning _fully_ sated for what was probably the first time in his entire life. Severus had done things to him which had been unimaginable before they'd set foot in that room, but by the time they'd left it, nothing had seemed too much. He had felt so much _closer_ to Severus after that night. Perhaps there were certain experiences which could only forge the sort of feelings which had bubbled in his chest. Trust. Awe. Confidence. _Devotion._  
  
With that, his body got the better of him, and he came.  
  
He'd had a lot of sex in recent weeks. Too much of not enough, it seemed, because he felt like he was close to passing out with the intensity of his orgasm. He was making noises which would mortify him later.  
  
He was coming, and Severus was the reason - and for the first time in two years, he felt at peace.


	7. Part VII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A sense of loyalty takes him back. He quickly wishes he'd never bothered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Warnings: Angst, language, hand job, mentions of past alcoholism, unhealthy relationship, suicidal ideation.

“What do you think your family would say if you could see you now?”  
  
Ron really didn't want to think about the answer to that. He felt blissfully exhausted – limp. Tension which he'd had no idea he was holding in his frame was gone and he felt lighter than he had in months.  
  
He was sprawled over Severus' bed, flat on his back and naked, half covered by a duvet which had twisted the wrong way round. Severus laid alongside him with his head propped up on his hand as he traced his finger over Ron's belly.  
  
“Don't know, don't care,” Ron answered finally, tilting his head towards Severus so that his grin could be seen.  
  
Severus didn't smile back but rolled his eyes.  
  
“What?”  
“Still pretending you don't care what they think of you. Of your choices. But you do care very much and you always have.”  
  
Ron waited for him to continue.  
  
“It's not a bad thing to care. They're your family. You seek their approval and love as thousands of other people seek love and approval every day. But you can't deny that every day we were together was harder for the fact that that approval never really came, and you hated it, and it made you resent me.”  
“I didn't _resent_ you,” Ron muttered. “I was just... annoyed. That it wasn't easier. That they couldn't see what I saw. Feel what I felt. Because if they had then they wouldn't have questioned it. I s'pose... it hurt that they didn't trust me to know what was best for me.”  
  
Severus suddenly laughed. Ron frowned at him.  
  
“Oh, come on, Ron. I'm probably the worst thing for you. Always have been. And Merlin knows we're all good at indulging in things that are bad for us.”  
“Is that what today's been? Indulging?” Ron raised his eyebrows. “And when you're finished with me you're just gonna throw me away and carry on with your life?”  
  
Severus hesitated just a second too long.  
  
“Oh.”  
“You misunderstand me.”  
“Nothing to misunderstand, you didn't fucking say anything.”  
“Have you forgotten that my silence is not akin to apathy? It did take you long enough to learn that in the first place, mind.”  
“Oh fuck off,” Ron huffed.  
  
“Shhh.” Severus hushed him in a whisper and then kissed him.  
  
Ron had formed thoughts of getting up, dressed and leaving. But they melted away when Severus' lips touched his own. As it always had been – Severus talked him out of his best ideas simply by being himself.  
  
“I have no intention of 'throwing' you anywhere. Except perhaps on this bed. I meant what I said, Ron. That I told myself if you ever came back into my life, I would never let you go again.”  
  
They stared at each other. It seemed to be one of those silences where everything and nothing was being said all at once. A look, a gaze held and shared for mere moments, meaning more than anything either of them could ever have made with words.  
  
“What are we going to do?” Ron whispered.  
“I have to be at the Romanian Ministry this time tomorrow.”  
“But I don't want to leave you.”  
“I don't want to leave you either, but I have a reputation to uphold and a living to earn.”  
  
Something pulled in Ron's chest. Already he felt second rate to Severus' new life.  
  
“I have spent the last two years filling my days with distractions. Making myself as busy as my body and mind could handle – sometimes beyond. It will take me some time to... clear the calendar, so to speak. I will, but I have commitments which I cannot just drop even if I would like to. I've spent too long building relationships and trust... If I ruin those now, my career is over.”  
“I understand.” Ron heard how very small his voice sounded and hated himself for it.  
“You do, but you don't like it.”  
“I spent two years moping, working my backside off as a distraction... but all I had was silence and a nasty addiction to punishing myself for losing you.”  
  
Severus sighed and moved to lie down. His wrist gave an unhealthy sounding crack as it straightened. He kept his eyes on the ceiling as he asked, “I'm fairly certain I don't want you to elaborate on that. Am I right?”  
“You're right,” Ron confirmed.  
“Were you... did you put yourself in danger?”  
“A few times.”  
“Would you have followed through with it?”  
  
Ron held the answer in his mouth, unsure of whether he should be honest or not.  
  
“Christ.”  
  
It was easy to forget that the wizard lying next to him was a half-blood. With the past, Severus' choices, it was effortless to forget the Muggle father, the hatred of magic that he grew up with. But every now and then, just as Ron remembered, a Muggle phrase or curse would pass through his lips and he seemed so very ordinary at those moments.  
  
Ron's belly squirmed as Severus reached for his hand and laced their fingers together.  
  
“If anything had had happened to you... I don't know what I would have done. The thought of...”  
  
Ron grew hot in the face hearing the emotion with which Severus spoke. He didn't like hearing how much he mattered to people. Or maybe he did - he wasn't sure.  
  
“Have you had any of those... incidents recently?”  
“Sometimes I have those thoughts every day.”  
“Fuck it.”  
  
Ron didn't say anything further – he wished he'd never opened his mouth at all.  
  
It had all gone so far from what he'd imagined it might be if he ever reunited with Severus. They would just wipe the slate clean and start again, forgetting about whatever had happened during their time apart. He felt foolish for dreaming of that – to hope for such a stupid resolution.  
  
Both of them seemed to have been changed irrevocably by their separation. For the good in Severus' case and for the bad in Ron's own.  
  
“I meant what I said,” Severus repeated.  
“I know, you said that.”  
“No, about killing the person that got between us.”  
“You don't mean that, because if you did you'd go to prison, and then I'd really lose my shit.”  
“We wouldn't want that, of course.”  
“Don't make fun of me!”  
“I'm not making fun of you,” Severus replied, in an entirely unconvincing tone. Ron didn't have to look at him to see his smirk.  
“I'm serious though... because being without you now after this would finish me off. And I'm not making it up, or creating 'drama'...” he made a face. “I'd be done. That's all I'm saying.”  
  
He rolled onto his side and smoothed his free hand across Severus' stomach, which was cool to the touch and still flat. He slid his fingers down the trail of dark hair leading away from the navel and gently laid his palm over the coarse curls just below. Severus gave a contented grunt of assent and looked up at Ron, his expression soft and almost playful.  
  
“And they don't let you do this in prison,” Ron went on, worming his fingers lower.  
“I'd imagine they do, but I doubt it'd be particularly enjoyable...”  
“I vote we don't find out.”  
  
They ended up in another kiss, whilst Ron's fingers curled around hardening flesh.  
  
***  
  
Sore, shattered and with stinging lips, Ron slid the key into his front door and sighed as he stepped out of the burning sun. The heatwave still hadn't broken. The house was still as he stood enjoying the coolness of the hallway. It smelt of home. His home. Somewhere which had been the scene of many a miserable night and dangerously low mood.  
  
The difference in him was something he was slightly ashamed of. Two days with Severus and he felt alive again – felt like the air tasted sweeter, that colours were brighter. He knew it was all rubbish and cliché but there was no denying that he felt so much _better_ than he had before travelling north.  
  
It wasn't the only travelling he planned to do. Severus was in Romania. They'd agreed that to break the momentum after such a healing two days between them was stupid. Severus had to be in Romania, so Ron would go with him. Such was his excitement at being invited, he forgot he even had a brother living in the same country. He'd become rather embarrassed when Severus had asked if he'd want to actually see Charlie.  
  
He wasn't sorry about saying no, though – not if it meant getting more time with Severus. Charlie hadn't really been present during their relationship the first time round. Ron had exchanged letters with him, sometimes they'd discussed the way the rest of the family were acting. Charlie's advice had been fortifying, if blunt - _'Fuck them. They think they know what's best for you and maybe they do, but you've got to find that out for yourself.'_  
  
Ron had let the flow of correspondence slacken after it all ended. He didn't want to know if Charlie had thought that the rest of their family had been right all along.  
  
 _You actually have somewhere to be, you know._  
  
The reminder jolted him into action and Ron bound up the stairs, taking them two at a time, to be confronted with the sight of his extraordinarily messy bedroom. He suspected if he got close enough he would still be able to smell Harry on the sheets.  
  
 _Harry._  
  
He'd been so absorbed with Severus he'd not thought a second more about Harry, everything Harry had admitted to and everything they'd done together. He felt nauseous suddenly – how much more complicated his life was than it had seemed snuggled up in Severus' bed. He seemingly had the man he loved back, but he'd shared something with Harry which would be very hard to get past in terms of simply returning to friendship.  
  
 _Your best friend. You fucked your best friend._  
  
Harry had looked so happy the last time they'd parted. Drugged up on sex and happiness. Ron thought he could guess what the news of his reunion with Severus would do to the slight brunet who had been his best friend since he was eleven.  
  
“Shit,” he cursed to himself. “Shit, shit, shit.”  
  
Severus would be waiting for him in half an hour a the main Portkey hub in London. Despite the timescale, Ron knew that he couldn't take off to Romania without telling Harry – without telling Harry _everything._  
  
With slightly shaking fingers, he pulled a battered old rucksack from the top of his wardrobe and began stuffing clothes into it.  
  
***  
  
“Harry, can we talk?”  
  
Ron wove his way through a crowd of Junior Aurors leaving the meeting room.  
  
“Oh, hey!” Harry's face lit up. Ron's innards trembled. “Where've you been?” He lowered his voice and, checking the last Auror was out of the door, he reached forward and pulled Ron close to him by the waist. “I've been trying the house every night. Why the silence? Is everything okay?”  
  
“Uh, yeah. You could say that.” Ron stepped back and shifted the rucksack over his shoulder. “Look, Harry – I've got something to tell you.”  
“I was thinking, why don't we go away together – somewhere quiet and we can be alone?”  
“Harry.”  
“I think that I can get some time off from this madhouse. Might have a fight though seeing as you're not here.”  
“Harry, I need to -”  
“I've missed you so much.” Harry's smile was pure gold.  
  
He made to kiss Ron on the lips but Ron turned his head away and let Harry catch his cheek instead.  
  
Ron hated himself as he opened his mouth. “Harry. The reason you haven't been able to reach me is... is because I've been with Severus for the last few days. We're... well. It turns out that he didn't leave me. He didn't... he didn't want to stop seeing me.”  
“What?” Harry's face had gone an unflattering grey colour.  
  
Ron shrugged helplessly. “We're back together. I think.”  
“No.” Harry shook his head. “But you... we... I told you I loved you! You said you loved me back!”  
“No, I didn't, Harry.”  
“Oh my god.”  
“I'm so sorry, Harry-”  
“I made sure that this wouldn't happen! I hid the logs! I made sure you never knew where he was!”  
  
Ron stopped dead with jaw hanging.  
  
“I fucking monitored your post for over a year!”  
“You _what_?!”  
“I did it because I loved you. He didn't love you. He was so bad for you, Ron, you just couldn't see it.”  
  
“Oh my god.” Ron slowly backed away from him.  
“I did it for your own good... and because I couldn't stand seeing you with him. I love you, Ron. I have for so long.”  
  
Horror curdling in the pit of his belly, Ron wasn't sure what his first reaction should be – to be sick, to scream, to punch him.  
  
“Why would you do that to me?” His voice sounded horrible – very unlike him.  
“Because I loved you. I just didn't know how to tell you.”  
“Harry, do you know how many times I nearly offed myself? How close I came to ending it all?”  
  
Harry's eyes widened.  
  
“How many times I had to sit there and weigh up the pros and cons of continuing to breathe?!”  
  
He was no longer confused as to what he should feel – he was boiling with rage. He drew breath to go again, to properly shout, when a noise came from behind him.  
  
“What's going on in here?” A concerned passer-by stuck their head into the room.  
  
“Nothing,” Harry and Ron snapped together.  
  
Ron turned back to Harry, fully aware of the unpleasant snarl twisting his lips. Harry just stared at him.  
  
“Fuck you.” Ron spat on the floor between them. “Fuck you, Harry.”  
  
When his voice cracked on naming his best friend, he knew it was time to leave.  
  
And he did just that, turning on his heel and leaving Harry stunned in his wake.  
  
***  
  
“I thought you weren't coming.” Severus muttered the words from tight lips.  
“I wouldn't miss this for the world.” Ron hoped he sounded calm. He was wreck but there was no way he was going to tell Severus anything until they were at least several hundred miles away, and maybe not even then. “I'm so happy I'm coming with you.”  
  
He slipped his hand into Severus', shielded by the bulk of their luggage. He squeezed tightly and gently leant into the wizard's shoulder.  
  
“I am glad you are here.”


	8. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They've both changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contents / Warnings: Angst, language, mentions of past alcoholism, unhealthy relationship, suicidal ideation.

“This is new.” Severus' finger traced over a healed scar. “How on earth did you get injured there?”  
  
Ron shrugged. “Can't remember.”  
“Are you quite sure about that, Mr Weasley?” Severus muttered into his ear while he locked his arms around Ron's torso. “Years teaching and espionage have taught me to recognise when I'm being lied to.”  
“Years as a bloody legilimens, you mean?”  
“That too.”  
  
Ron relaxed into the hug and sunk down into the hot bath water a little further. Their hotel room had an obscenely big bath. It seemed like hours ago he'd suggested sharing it; the hazy coils of scented steam coming off the water had stolen his bearings and all sense of time.  
  
“Tell me how you got that scar,” Severus said again, his voice hardening ever-so-slightly – enough to let Ron know that he wasn't going to get away with playing dumb about it.  
“I fell off my broom,” Ron said carefully.  
“You never fall off your broom. Not once in two years did I even see you slip.”  
“Well, there were... extenuating circumstances, I think that's what they're called.”  
“Such as?”  
  
Ron closed his eyes and tried to think of something to buy some time.  
  
“Ron?”  
“Yeah?”  
“I'm waiting.”  
  
With an exasperated moan, Ron opened his eyes again.  
  
“I fell off my broom because I fainted. I landed on the chicken coop and mum spent the afternoon picking chicken wire out of my shoulder.”  
“Why did you faint?”  
  
He hesitated. He didn't want another piece of the past to rear up and puncture the happy bubble they found themselves in. Severus seemed hell bent on asking him about their time apart and the things that he had done during it. He'd started asking questions – how, when, why - _'what on earth possessed you?'_  
  
“Tell me.” He shook Ron slightly.  
“Why do you keep asking me things you don't want the answers to?”  
“Because I feel responsible for them and I need to know, Ron.”  
“You weren't responsible for any of it and you don't need to know anything at all up until we met on the pavement a week ago.”  
“Please, Ron.”  
“It'll only upset you.”  
“Then I'll be upset. Let me choose how I handle things.”  
  
Ron let out a sharp huff of breath and touched a finger tip to some nearby bubbles.  
  
“I fainted because I'd not eaten for four days straight. I'd not eaten because I didn't think I deserved food. I was punishing myself. My mum put me to bed, looked after me and had to hand feed me soup until I regained enough strength and wherewithal to be yelled by her for not eating. She was extremely cross.”  
“I'd imagine she was.”  
  
Heavy silence followed that last remark.  
  
“Why do you keep doing this?” Ron whispered. “I wasn't well. I did stupid things. And I regret them but I was having suicidal thoughts up until the minute I laid eyes on you last week. Seven days later and we're sitting here in a bath in Romania and I'm fucking glad none of my idiotic attempts at dying were successful... but eight days ago? Eight days ago I was feeling like shit and wanting the ground to open up and swallow me.”  
“And me re-entering your life – will that be enough to put an end to it all? Will you magically be better?”  
“I doubt it.”  
“And so what... I'm expected to ever let you out of my sight again knowing what might be going through your mind?”  
  
Ron didn't know how to answer that. “I guess you are.”  
“I don't think I can.”  
“Well you can't have eyes on me all the time.”  
  
Severus stayed silent, putting his face into Ron's hair.  
  
“And see now you're miserable, and I feel like shit. What good did that conversation do? Stop asking.”  
“I have to know.”  
“Well if you want to know so bloody badly, why don't you just look? Go on. I'm giving you permission. Look inside my head. You're more than capable. I'm giving you my permission, Severus.”  
“Absolutely not.”  
“It'll save all these bloody questions.”  
“We've finished all the drinks we ordered.”  
“And you'd know how much I love you.”  
“I'm hungry. Are you hungry?”  
“I've got nothing to hide.”  
  
 _Not true._  
  
Ron winced on acknowledging the lie. He'd somehow managed to keep his parting with Harry from Severus despite veering from incandescent rage to the all-consuming agony of betrayal. Even though they were safely miles away, Ron still feared Severus' reaction to the news.  
  
The news that the boy he had nearly given his life for had caused them both so much unhappiness.  
  
“Let's get out, find some food and finish this conversation later?”  
“No, we'll finish it now. You were so bloody keen to start it you can finish it, too.”  
“What else is there to say? I refuse to abuse my power and your trust to read your mind. You insist that there is no need for me to be told everything. We are at somewhat of an impasse, no?”  
“Are you going to stop asking?”  
“Only when I believe I know the true extent of what you put yourself through because of me. Then I'll stop, because Merlin knows I'll need to try and make my peace with it.”  
“It's the past. Don't bother.”  
“But it might not be.”  
  
“For God's sake!” Ron groaned, grabbing the sides of the bath and heaving himself upright. “We're just going round in bloody circles here.”  
  
He stepped out of the bath and reached for a towel. Severus' eyes followed his every move. Suddenly, instead of feeling relaxed and peaceful, he felt sluggish and nauseous. As he opened the bathroom door cool air rushed in from the bedroom where the cooling spell was working hard to keep out the fierce summer beyond the walls of the hotel.  
  
Ron located what he thought was a clean t-shirt and a pair of pants and drifted to the balcony doors. He didn't open them, wanting to keep the sticky night out, but he looked at the twinkling lights of the city. He heard no noise from the bathroom for a good while, but eventually Severus must have gotten to his feet and pulled the plug out.  
  
Ron listened to the water slowly glugging down into the pipes and kept on looking out of the doors.  
  
“Do you remember the first evening we spent together?” Severus asked softly, after drying himself off.  
“Yep.”  
“Do you remember what I said to you?”  
“Nope.”  
  
There was a huff of mild irritation before Severus continued. “I told you not to fall in love with me. I told you to not entertain even one single affectionate thought for me. That it would be a mistake.”  
  
Ron looked down at his feet.  
  
“You didn't listen. You were there. You kept coming back for more. Every time you turned up on my doorstep or my hearth, I was stunned that you wanted... well, me.”  
“I think I was a bit, too,” Ron answered truthfully.  
“And I just kept on thinking that one day, I'd wake up, and you'd have finally realised the mistake you were making and you'd be gone.”  
“And then you really thought I _had_ gone.”  
“And it ruined everything.”  
“Yeah, if this is meant to make me feel better, it's not.”  
“I suppose I just have a macabre need to know just how big a mistake I turned out to be for you. I need to know what you did and what you felt, how much you hurt. I need to bring that upon myself before I can even begin to process my guilt. Can you understand that?”  
“I can, but I don't want you to punish yourself with it. What does it matter? It's in the past – let it stay there. I'm willing to move on. Move on with me. We're starting again with a clean slate. It can't be like last time again because we both knew it was unhealthy – your drinking, your temper, my inability to stand up to my family...”  
  
He crossed the room and slipped his arms around Severus' waist. “We have a second chance. Let's not fuck it up by getting hung up on the past.”  
  
Fixing him with a pensive stare, Severus returned the embrace.  
  
Ron only guessed what was going to happen a second before he felt the tender, almost erotic sensation of another mind sliding into his own. He closed his eyes and let it happen, let his memories be sifted through, picked up and put down like stock in a shop. Harry had always described the experience of being read by a legilimens as being some kind of rape – but that was far from how Ron felt about the situation.  
  
 _Harry._  
  
 _No._  
  
 _FUCK._  
  
Ron staggered slightly as Severus jerked out of the spell. His vision swum.  
  
“What was that?”  
“Look, I can -”  
“It was Potter that stopped the letters? Because he loved you? And you fucked him just days before you came back to me?”  
  
Ron had rarely seen Severus look as shocked as he did at that moment. All the colour seemed to have bleached from his skin.  
“I've been trying to think of a way to tell you. I'm so angry with him, Severus. I could throttle him with my own bare hands and not be satisfied.”  
“When did you find out it was him?”  
“Just before I met you at the Portkey Station.”  
“It's why you were late.”  
“Yes.” His voice had grown very small.  
  
He waited for the screaming to start – for Severus to crash around and hurl verbal abuse at him as had happened in the past. When he finally dared to glance up, however, after several deathly silent moments, Severus was staring out of the balcony doors with a strange expression.  
  
Ron had to search hard to see the hint of moisture in the man's dark eyes, but it was there, gathering by the second. Severus reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose.  
  
“I'm sorry,” Ron offered.  
“You have nothing to apologise for. It's Potter that needs to beg on bended knee.”  
“I wanted to tell you when you got here... so that there were several hundred miles between you both.”  
“A clever and wise move.”  
“What are you going to do to him?”  
“Nothing.  
“Eh?!” Ron exclaimed. “I thought you'd go fucking postal on him.”  
  
Severus sighed and took a seat on the edge of the bed. He patted the space next to him and Ron sat too, shoulder to shoulder with him.  
  
“I was that man. I had so much anger in me, Ron. But I came to believe that it was my anger which drove you away, and so I sought to eradicate it.”  
“Everyone gets angry.”  
“Yes, but not everybody gets angry because their partner brings home the wrong cheese, for example.”  
“Oh you were totally shitfaced that night. I remember it well.”  
“I'm not surprised. Your hair smelt like cheese for weeks.”  
  
Ron shuddered and started to laugh. Severus reached for his hand and laced their fingers together.  
  
“Believe me, I'd very much like to march back to England and string Potter up from a tree by his bollocks. But I won't do that, because I know how much it will upset you. And I never want to upset you again.”  
“Everyone gets upset!” Ron protested. “What's the point of talking about things you can't help. You can't be perfect, Severus. Nobody's perfect.”  
“I can bloody well try.”  
  
Ron shook his head. “Every second more this sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. Again.”  
“I don't want it to be.”  
“Me either.”  
  
Severus lifted their joined hands and kissed the back of Ron's.  
  
“I am _furious_ with Potter. But I refuse to let it come between us.”  
“And you're just going to lie forever when something makes you angry? That's not a relationship, Severus.”  
“I know.”  
“Do you? Because it doesn't sound like you really understand how the whole thing works. We have to be open with each other.”  
“Ron, do you ever remember sitting down and talking like this before? I think we're showing a vast improvement already.”  
  
Ron couldn't help the fact that he laughed.  
  
“Who knows, perhaps tomorrow I'll start handing out sweets and sobbing openly on other people.”  
  
Unable to stop the laughter rolling up out of his gut, Ron snorted unflatteringly which made Severus laugh. And then his fingers were there, tickling underneath Ron's t-shirt, pressing him back onto the bed. Ron lost his breath quickly and soon after his will to struggle. Severus grabbed his hands and pinned them down on either side of Ron's head.  
  
Ron raised his chin slightly, expecting a kiss, but instead Severus looked down at him and opened his mouth.  
  
“You slept with him? And your boss? Is there anyone you haven't fucked recently?”  
“That's not fair.” Ron met his eye. “I just got desperate and Harry... he turned up on my doorstep telling me that he loved me and that he wanted me and I... I gave in to it. I wanted some love. He threw himself at me.”  
“I just think you must have been beyond desperate to risk ruining your friendship. I know he means the world to you. I know that it hurt you when he couldn't accept our... our relationship. I thought it was part of the reason that you left me.”  
  
Ron sucked on his teeth as he thought how best to answer. “I was. Desperate, I mean. I wasn't thinking. I was at breaking point. If he'd not turned up... I don't think I'd be here now. It was the catalyst to me finding you. And Ceri... I just wanted to make her happy. Do you know how hard it is to work with someone who is so in love with you that she lets you get away with murder and you know you shouldn't abuse it but you do and then you end up in a right old mess sleeping with them to make them feel better?”  
“No, can't say I do, Ron.”  
“Well, fuck it then.”  
“Or her, rather.”  
  
Embarrassed, Ron let his head fall to one side to avoid having to look at the older wizard on top of him.  
  
“There is nothing wrong with seeking affection to make yourself feel better, Ron. Perhaps you could have chosen more delicately but... what's done is done.”  
“Are you angry?” He sounded timid and pathetic; Ron hated himself for it.  
“No, you daft sod.” Severus kissed his cheek gently. “I'm not angry. I'm worried about what you might have done to your life in the process, but I'm not angry.”  
“I know I've fucked everything up. I'm an idiot.”  
  
A wave of nausea crept over him and Ron closed his eyes.  
  
“Whatever you've done, I'll support you through picking up the pieces or... or ignoring them. Whatever you want.”  
“It's like you've become a completely different person in the last two years.”  
“No, I'm still generally unpleasant, irascible and bitter. Nothing will ever change that.”  
“And I hope nothing ever changes how kind a lover you are. How much, no matter how hard you try to hide it, you can love.”  
  
“Merlin's cock, what's got into you?”  
“I guess I've changed too.”  
“Mm. It seems so.”  
  
They kissed again.  
  
***  
  
  
Ron was enjoying waking up slowly. Severus was gone – presumably back to the Romanian ministry on business. He had the bed to himself and it was like sleeping on a cloud. Around him the sheets smelt of a mix of both of their bodies. He reached out and pulled Severus' pillow to his chest. It was divinely soft.  
  
He closed his eyes, feeling content to just drift off again. For the first time in months sleep was pleasurable – not just something which evaded him. It refreshed him again rather than leaving him constantly unsatisfied. He remembered just how much he loved it and the long, lazy lie-ins he'd enjoyed before his life was turned upside down.  
  
He started as something cold brushed against his hand. On the bed next to him stood a gleaming opalescent horse.  
  
 _Ginny._  
  
The horse opened its mouth and her voice came out – her fraught, hurt voice.  
  
 _”Where are you? I'm really worried about you. I need to speak to you. Harry's gone... Harry's gone out of his mind. I need you. Please come home.”_  
  
The horse repeated its message twice more, pawed at the bed and then turned and cantered off through the nearest wall. Ron blinked after it, still flat out in the bed and cuddling Severus' pillow to his chest.  
  
His sister's words replayed over and over in his head. Harry. Something was wrong with Harry.  
  
Ron was surprised to find that he didn't greatly care.  
  
 _He can go and fuck himself._  
  
He pulled the duvet up over his head and held his breath for a while. He wasn't going to run home like a good little boy. They could wait.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hiding forever isn't an option.

_Severus looked almost ethereal. Pale, glowing skin. Bright eyes. A look of immense devotion.  
  
Ron turned his head and met several pairs of eyes staring back at him. Expressionless. Motionless. Silent.  
  
“Ron? Look at me. Not them. Look at me.”  
  
Severus' hands came up to rest on his shoulders.  
  
“Do you want to do this, Ron?”  
“I do want to.”  
“Then let's just do it.”  
“Right now? With all these people watching?”  
“Yes. I want the world to know I love you.”  
“They're creeping me out a bit, to be honest.” He made a face.  
  
He jumped as a booming voice rang out next to him, an old Ministry officiator looming above them, hands out, preaching.  
  
“Severus, I'm not sure if-”  
“Don't you love me?”  
“I do, but this isn't what I-”  
  
Suddenly the room was filled with a much louder voice than the Officiator's. Ron flinched to hear it – the voice of a dead man – a dead brother.  
  
“If you do this, you're dead to me,” Fred spat contemptuously. “How can you choose him over your family?”  
  
Too stunned by the sight of him to reply, Ron stared with his mouth open.  
  
“I always knew there was something wrong with you. You were never like us.”  
“I am – I am like you!” Ron stammered finally.  
“Not if you think a life with that piece of shit is worth your own flesh and blood.”  
“Fred-”  
  
The punch into his cheekbone was agony and he staggered, falling over his own feet. The breath flew out of him as he hit the floor hard._  
  
And then he was wide-eyed and sweating, trying to blink the room into focus and failing. He heard the panting of his breath and was overcome by the tingling fear coursing through his body.  
  
He looked over his shoulder and was relieved to see that he hadn't woken Severus. He put his face into shaking fingers and breathed in deeply.  
  
He'd not had a dream about Fred for a very, very long time. After the Battle he'd been plagued with them, the nightmares littered with everything from hysterical sobbing and apologies for bullying to screaming rage, blaming Ron for his death – for not saving him. Then there were those which saw Fred berate him for not properly looking after George.  
  
Ron had hoped, quite hard, that the nightmares wouldn't return. He certainly didn't need to see Fred accusing him of betraying his family for returning to Severus.  
  
 _For marrying Severus._ His mind's gentle correction made him drop his hands and stare into the darkness.  
  
“Well that's new,” he muttered to himself.  
  
Severus gave a grunt next to him and Ron winced, but the man did nothing but nuzzle into his pillow and start to snore. Sliding one hand back to lean on his arm, Ron looked down at the sleeping face of the wizard that, one way or another, had been everything for quite some time.  
  
It was far more peaceful than it ever looked during waking hours. Severus' brow was smooth and his mouth slack. He sported shadows of darkness on his cheeks and jawline as his stubble came in – Ron liked it, he decided. It took away from the sallowness of his complexion, but even this was smoothed into a pleasant milkiness by the night. He was somewhat too thin lying under the light duvet, his chest rising and falling in the rhythm Ron wouldn't openly confess he'd listened to night after night since their reunion, terrified that for some reason he wouldn't hear it.  
  
He watched for a while longer, feeling his mind come properly to life and his body wake up. He glanced at the clock and it was still the middle of the night.  
  
An urge to touch crept through his fingers and to prevent himself from giving in to it he rolled out of the bed and drifted over to the window. There was a city twinkling outside but rather than doing anything romantic – enchanting him, beguiling him perhaps – Ron just found it plainly irritated him. There was a world out there to explore but he had spent two years playing with his own life, wishing for death or at the very least, for the noise in his head to stop.  
  
He wished that he could be annoyed about the fact that it was all because of one man, but he couldn't. There was absolutely no denying that with Severus there came a wholeness. His chest didn't feel like anyone had kicked through it. There was no creeping sense of self-loathing which made him in turn loathe himself more.  
  
He felt _good._ He knew what Severus was worried about – that it was all just a temporary fix and that he would crash again. Perhaps he would, but Ron couldn't think it would be as bad as before with Severus by his side. A Severus who was much altered, it seemed.  
  
Silly as it sounded, Ron thought Severus had grown up a great deal since the last time they'd shared a bed. There seemed to be a new found confidence in his stride, in the way he carried himself. Whereas their separation had nearly been catastrophic for Ron, it had done the opposite for Severus.  
  
“And now's your time to fix it all,” Ron whispered to himself.  
  
He turned away from the window and turned to look at Severus again. The older wizard was still asleep, unaware of strange dreams and the restless soul wandering the hotel room. Impulsively he crunched some of his knuckles and let the sickening sensation ground him.  
  
The carpet was far too luxurious under his bare feet. Severus had insisted on the hotel, the room – all at his expense given that it was his usual stay when he visited the city and he was accustomed to a higher standard of living 'these days'. Ron had raised his eyebrows and silently judged him for that comment. Severus had stared back and dared him to say it aloud.  
  
Ron hadn't. And he'd happily sipped on the Champagne and nibbled on the strawberries and the lush dinners they'd shared in the privacy of their suite.  
  
It had been pretty much perfect, even with Severus finding out about Harry.  
  
Thinking about his best friend made Ron feel instantly sick. He'd ignored several more messages from home and was quite disturbed by his willingness to disregard their increasing urgency. George, Hermione, Ginny again. He supposed only his mother would turn him. Only then would it seem time to go home and face the music.  
  
Severus' work was done. They were now staying on their own time, because they wanted to, and he had decided to rearrange several other meetings to suit. That had touched Ron, given the instant ease and calm Severus had employed to shift those meetings around. _“I'm actually taking some time off over a personal matter of great importance to me. Rest assured I will be in touch as soon as I'm able. Thank you. I will.”_  
  
There was a warm fuzzy feeling attached to remembering that Severus had called him a 'matter of great importance'. Despite knowing that made him mentally about fifteen-years-old, Ron grinned to himself in the darkness. He was important. To Severus. And he had always known he was, but it looked for a good while that reality was going to prove him wrong.  
  
He'd pretended to be engrossed in the paper whilst Severus made firecalls. He was pretty sure Severus knew he'd been listening.  
  
Ron smiled to himself and reached out to trail his fingers over something – he didn't know what – but he still needed to touch. It struck him that he felt like a child waiting for Christmas, just itching to throw himself on every bed in the house and wake all and sundry up for his own enjoyment. He didn't think Severus would take kindly to that any more than his parents had, or the teenaged Bill and Charlie wrenched from sleep by an excited five-year-old version of himself years before.  
  
He let out a long huff and blew out his cheeks.  
  
“Oh, for the love of Merlin!” Severus' cry from the bed was sharp and exasperated. Ron whirled round to find him sitting up in bed, hair in disarray, looking fairly furious. “What in God's name are you doing?”  
“Errrrr. Walking?”  
“Pacing. And muttering to yourself.”  
“Am I?”  
“Yes.” Severus said the word with a biting impatience which threw Ron headlong back into the Potions classroom, aged fifteen.  
“Sorry.” Ron awkwardly folded his arms over his chest. “I had a fucked up dream and there was no way I was drifting off again after that.  
  
There was another sigh and then the sounds of the bed creaking slightly. The room came up to a soft glow.  
  
“Come here. You bastard.” Severus patted the bed next to him.  
  
Like that child at Christmas, Ron couldn't help bounding to the bed and jumping on it, jostling Severus into several muttered swear words.  
  
“For Christ's sake calm down!” the man groused, rubbing hard at one eye. “What time is it?”  
“You don't want to know.” Ron made an apologetic face.  
“What was your dream about?”  
  
Ron opened his mouth to answer and then hesitated. The subject matter – marriage – well, that was a heavy conversation to have just after waking.  
  
“Tell me.” Severus raised his eyebrows. “I'm awake. At least do me the courtesy of letting me know why.”  
  
Nervously exhaling, Ron shifted where he sat and put his hand onto his foot to have something to fiddle with whilst he spoke.  
  
“Fred.”  
“Ah, the enigmatic dead brother. Yes. I remember this.”  
  
Ron stared at him.  
  
“Sorry. You know I'm not pleasant at this time of the morning. Any time of the morning.”  
“I remember _that_ ,” Ron threw back.  
“So. Fred Weasley, the student of many of my worst teaching nightmares. What happened?”  
“He attacked me.”  
“Why?”  
  
Ron swallowed, Severus waited. In the silence Severus reached over and pulled Ron's hand off his foot and held it.  
  
“Because I was in the middle of marrying you.”  
  
There was no immediate physical reaction to what he'd said. If it hadn't been for the emotion building in Severus' eyes, Ron might have thought that he'd not been heard. But knowing where to look with Severus was everything to knowing anything about him. So tightly strung, never giving anything away except in those moments of blinding anger. Ron had grown accustomed to looking for the little things.  
  
“You... do you think about that... often?”  
“I did when we weren't together. Tonight was the first time I've dreamt about it... it was so real.” He closed his eyes and dropped his chin into his chest. “And he was... furious. He hated me for it.”  
“And how did that make you feel?”  
“It scared the shit out of me, that's when I woke up. Look, I'm sorry I woke you up, Severus. You go back to sleep, I'll go and... have a bath or something.”  
“If you think I'll be able to fall asleep again after you've just admitted that you have such... thoughts, you've got another thing coming.”  
“What? That he'd be ashamed of me if I married you?”  
“No, you idiot, that you think about marrying me in the first place.”  
  
Ron frowned. “Why wouldn't I?”  
“Is that what you want?”  
“I want... I wanted something. A commitment, before. But I'm older now and yeah, if I'm honest, I'd like to get married some day.”  
“In the future. Not now?”  
“Do _you_ want to get married now?”  
“Maybe.”  
“Look, this is silly, it's stupid o'clock in the morning, we're both tired, let's try and-” He broke off as Severus' last word sank in. “Maybe? What the fuck? Maybe?”  
“You asked, I answered.”  
“With maybe?” Ron asked incredulously.  
“It was an honest answer. I wouldn't give you anything else.”  
“Well... I... why not, then?”  
“Because this is still very fresh for both of us and there are a lot of things to discuss and work through as we move forward.”  
“True.”  
“And with the differences in our age, it seems ridiculous and surely will leave us both open to taunting and... difficulty from our nearest and dearest. Not to mention the public.”  
“Also true.”  
“You have your career to think of. I'm not sure promotion will be on the cards if you've got an an ex-spy dangling off your arm.”  
“It was never a problem the first time round,” Ron pointed out.  
“You were more junior then. You manage people now.”  
  
Ron narrowed his eyes. “So, kept your eye on me then, whilst we were apart?”  
  
Severus ignored him and carried on. “And of course, there's the matter of your family. Of Harry.”  
  
Ron nodded and chewed his bottom lip.  
  
“And then there's the fact that I am completely in love with you, never want to let you out of my sight again and want to spend the rest of my days being a pain in your backside.”  
  
He looked up in surprise. Severus was staring at him, calm once again, a slight curve of a smile in the corner of his mouth.  
  
“So... where does that leave us?”  
“Do you want me to get my wand and perform the spell now?” Severus gestured to his wand on the bedside table. “We could. There's no need to make a circus of proceedings, all we need is each other and the spell.”  
  
Ron clenched his fingers where they lay in Severus' palm.  
  
“Would you really want that?”  
“Would you?”  
“Would my answer change yours?”  
“No.” Severus shook his head. “No, it wouldn't, Ron.”  
  
He started with shock as Severus closed the space between them and kissed him.  
  
“I think we have the same answer,” Severus whispered. “But not yet. Not now. We have time. All the time in world. And there will be some rough moments, when we go home.”  
“Dunno 'bout you, but getting married would put a shine on everything for a good while. It'd feel good to go home and shove it in their faces.”  
“I won't be your protest vote, Ron. I know you want them to see that you were right – that I didn't leave you. But you have to be prepared for some animosity. Anger, even. Especially as we don't know what Harry is doing and saying at the moment – you could set one foot in England to find that your name is mud.”  
“If it is, I'll just take the foot back out again and retreat to where the people are nicer and nobody spits in my face.”  
  
Severus assessed him with curious eyes. “You'd really leave your home?”  
  
Ron reached up and tucked some dark hair back behind Severus' ear. “If it meant I could be with you, then of course I would.”  
“God. This has all the elements of one of those terrible love stories in Witch Weekly.”  
“Well, I'm glad you said that, as I was thinking of writing it all down and sending it in. They apparently pay three galleons a story. Mum told me.”  
“Well, I'd look forward to reading that. Or not – I doubt I'd come out of it favourably.”  
  
They kissed again and Ron finally felt the tug of sleep on his senses again.  
  
“You're one of Witch Weekly's favourites,” he said through a yawn. “Dark and intense, deeply in love with a woman who didn't love you back, prepared to fight for her son until the death.”  
“It was that death was in the equation that I did it at all. And now I do wish I'd not bothered, given what he did to us.”  
“Do you mean that?” Ron cocked his head to one side. “I mean, really. Would you not have done any of it?”  
  
Severus gave a frustrated sigh and slumped back against the headboard. “There are so many things in my life I would do differently, Ron.”  
“Such as?”  
“I don't really want to get into it now. I've come to terms with a lot in the last two years. Losing you gave me the clarity to see that I needed to make changes and I made them. I have you back. I don't want to think about how my life could have been if I'd made different choices back when I was fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. Those were terrible years of my life. You know my history with my father, my mum was catatonic half the time. I had no true friends to speak of except for the one person I adored too hard and too completely, and it all went very, very wrong. I'd like not to experience the pain I have. Made the mistakes I have. But I can't undo any of those things and they've all led me here, to this bed. You. And I want to just accept it and move forward. Don't ask me to look back now.”  
  
“Okay,” Ron agreed without hesitation. “No looking back. Only forward. I understand. Me too, for what it's worth. There's no point moping about the past two years.” He twisted round to wriggle under the duvet and settled on his back.  
  
Severus laid down next to him and extinguished all but one of the candles. He propped up his head on the heel of one hand and used the other to trace Ron's collarbones with his finger.  
  
“Where should we go next, Ron?” He pressed a gentle kiss to Ron's shoulder. “Say money was no object, time no bother. Where would you go?”  
“Anywhere you wanted to go.”  
“Stop it, I'm asking _you._ I want to hear whether you've got any festering dreams.”  
  
Ron tried to think, but nothing came to mind.  
  
“Well, think on it. We can go there from here... we can travel.”  
“What about all those commitments you refused to cancel because of me?” Ron teased.  
“Utter bullshit. Couldn't have been lying less if I tried. I didn't want you to think me so easy that you could turn up on my doorstep and wreak immediate havoc in my life.”  
  
Severus rolled his eyes at the irony of what he'd said.  
  
“Sorry,” Ron offered. “But not really.”  
  
He held his breath as Severus' arms slipped around him – one under his back, the other over his chest, and the man's dark head rested on his shoulder. Ron embraced him in return, kissing the top of his hair.  
  
It felt so _right._  
  
***  
  
“We've only been here for a few days, how is everything everywhere?” Ron asked sulkily.  
“Because you're lazy and messy.”  
“Aw, thanks.”  
  
To make a point, Ron chucked a pair of pants he'd just picked up off the carpet back down again.  
  
Severus snorted his amusement and turned away to check everything work related was in order in his case. Ron started to hum as he hastily scooped his pants back up and stuffed them into his rucksack. Severus wouldn't tell him where they were going next, saying only that it was a surprise and Ron found himself pleasantly buzzed by the prospect. It had been some time since any surprises that landed by him were good.  
  
“I think I'm just about done,” he announced, yanking the zipper round. “Unless there's anything else you can see.”  
  
Ten minutes and a few squabbles later saw them downstairs in the hotel reception, checking out of their room. Severus signed something whilst Ron drifted around the well-decorated room, impatiently waiting for their adventure to begin.  
  
“Ah, Mr Snape. We have several messages left for your companion here. You asked not to be disturbed so we didn't bring these to the room, but there are quite a number of these now.”  
  
Ron looked up in time to see her giving a small stack of letters to Severus. Ron met his eye as he looked up, puzzled. Shrugging, Ron crossed the small space and took them from him.  
  
“Ginny,” he muttered. “George. Bill. Hermione. Jesus, even Charlie. What the fuck?”  
  
He turned away and tore open the top envelope and shook open the parchment. It was written in hurried script with blotches of ink in many places.  
  
 _Dear Ron,  
  
Come home now. There's something you need to know.  
  
Ginny._  
  
He worked his way through the stack, finding each letter suitably vague but looking equally as frantic. By the last, he was feeling nauseous and concerned.  
  
“Severus.”  
“Hmm?  
“These letters. They're all not saying the same thing.”  
“Which is?”  
  
***  
“Are you sure I should be here?” Severus asked quietly, standing close to Ron as they waited for the door of the Burrow to open. “I don't want to make things... complicated.”  
“You mean more complicated than it already is that we're back together after two years and I slept with Harry fucking Potter?”  
  
Severus let out a resigned breath and straightened up. Footsteps were hurrying towards the door.  
  
“Whatever happens in there...” Ron took Severus' hand. “I meant everything I said, and I'll go with you wherever we need to go to be happy together.”  
  
He didn't pull his hand away as the door swung open. Severus' quick squeeze to his fingers made his heart thud.  
  
“Ron?” His mother's incredulous voice cut through the summer air. “Oh, thank Merlin, finally. Finally!”  
  
She seized him in her hands and hugged him tight. She only came up to his chest. Determined that he would not let go of Severus' hand, he awkwardly hugged her back with his free arm until she pulled back to look at him. The colour of her face told him whatever he was about to learn was not good news.  
  
“At last. I thought... I thought something terrible might have happened.”  
“I've been with Severus,” Ron said gently. “We've been...” He didn't bother explaining further.  
“I'm just glad you're all right. When we didn't hear we started to worry, given that...”  
  
Her eyes filled with tears and Ron glanced worriedly at Severus.  
  
“I think you'd best come in, dears. You need to... well. Come in. I'll make some tea.”  
  
Ron nodded and stepped over the threshold to his childhood home. It occurred to him that he and Severus had very few experiences of being at the Burrow together. It made Ron's belly squirm a little to think of Severus looking at his baby photographs dotted around the house. He made his way to the sitting room which was lit with late afternoon light and a sweet breeze floating in from the orchard through the wide-flung windows. They'd spent their last few days locked in a blissfully temperature controlled hotel room and Ron had forgotten about the raging summer which seemed to have gripped the whole of Europe.  
  
But at home, hearing the lazy song of the birds in the apple trees and smelling the rising perfume of honeysuckle creeping up the side of the house, it was harder to forget the childhood he'd had there. Happy, for the most part.  
  
“Sit where you like,” he said softly to Severus. “Anywhere's good.”  
  
Severus did as he was asked, folding down with grace into the position nearest the door. Ron smiled to himself despite his increasing sense of dread. The Burrow was too quiet. Everyone was somewhere, if they weren't at home, and Ron had no idea where. These were the kind of nights they gathered in the back garden and ate their mother's cooking until they were fit to explode, drinking home made cider and mead and laughing – a lot.  
  
He heard his mother's approaching footsteps and hurried to sit down himself. She entered with a tea tray floating by her side. The absence of cake or even biscuits confused him. Her hands shook as she set it down on the coffee table in the middle of them all. She looked up at him and then sat down next to him.  
  
“Mum, what's going on?” He sighed. “Where is everyone? Why the cryptic clues?”  
“Well I couldn't let them tell you in a letter, Ron, or a patronus. I just couldn't.”  
“Tell me what?”  
“Oh, god no.” Severus' interruption surprised him and Ron frowned at him.  
  
Severus was holding an old copy of _The Daily Prophet_ in his hands and staring down at it, eyes wide and face pale.  
  
“Don't,” Molly said, her voice strained. “No. This has to be done properly, Severus.”  
  
Ron watched the older wizard set back, leaving the paper in his lap. Severus closed his eyes.  
  
“Ron. Shortly after you... after you went away, Harry began behaving erratically. Ginny was worried. We all were. And then despite our best efforts, he managed to get away two days later... on his own... and...”  
  
Her eyes began to blink furiously as she fought back tears. Her fingers were still shaking. Ron suddenly knew what it was she was going to say before she could open her mouth again.  
  
“He's dead, isn't he?” he whispered, hearing the devastation in his own voice. “Harry's dead, mum. That's what you're trying to say isn't it?”  
“Yes. Sweetheart, I'm so sorry. He's gone.”  
“How.... H-how did he do it?”  
“Poison. He got it at work, it seems.”  
“It was a dig at me.” Ron looked down at his legs. “At us. He knew that Severus had come back into my life and...”  
“I know you fought. That you had some kind of argument.”  
  
Fire lit somewhere in his lungs, burning painfully as he tried to process that information – that his family knew that he and Harry had fought the last time they'd seen one another.  
  
“I know you argued, Ron. I know that you did what was best for you in going away with Severus. You've been a shadow of yourself for years now and I, and I think the rest of your family, would accept anything to see you back to your old self. I'm happy that you and Severus have come back together. I am. You look so much better already.”  
  
Questions filled his mouth and he just clung onto them – he needed to know, for example, whether his family knew that Harry had been the cause of the separation to start with, and his motive. Whether they knew if they'd slept together.  
  
“Do you have it?” Ron asked.  
“Have what, dear?” His mother was sniffling into a hanky.  
“The note. Can I see it?”  
  
She hesitated for a moment, before slipping her hand into the pocket of her apron and pulling out a ripped envelope. She handed it to him and busied herself with pouring tea, not paying any heed to the fact that she was crying her eyes out.  
  
Ron managed to get the parchment out but his fingers fumbled opening it up. He wasn't sure he _wanted_ to see it, but knew he needed to.  
  
It was a standard suicide note. He'd seen enough of them working in the Auror department – those with magic could end their lives in the most interruptive ways possible and hiding those events from Muggles always proved testing. Harry's note was standard, in his usual scrawled script, the words even and calm.  
  
At the bottom he had signed 'all my love, Harry.'  
  
Ron wanted to tear it to shreds. There was nothing in there. His family knew nothing of the truth unless Harry had spoken it aloud to someone before killing himself. And there was no mention in his note of any grief, any apology for what he had almost done to Ron's life. He looked up and met Severus' eye – he gave a tiny, almost imperceptible jerk of his had to indicate that Harry hadn't confessed to anything in his goodbye note.  
  
Rage built steadily within him as he looked at the man he had almost lost due to Harry's interference. And Harry – fuck him – hadn't even bothered to stay around and be screamed at over the whole thing. Ron hated him for it.  
  
“Dear, you should let me have that back. Ginny might want to keep it and...”  
  
Looking down at his hand, Ron saw the note there twisted in his fist. His knuckles were white. He tossed it onto the carpet and got to his feet.  
  
Suddenly everything that had seemed comforting about the house seemed to choke him – the heat, the birds, the honeysuckle. His belly was roiling with nausea.  
  
“Ron, where are you going?” his mother sounded panicked. “Please, sit down, dont-”  
“I've got to GO,” Ron shouted emphatically. “I can't... I c-cant stay here, mum. Let me go!”  
  
Which of course she refused to do and grabbed hold of his arm. He tried to pull away but he was already crumbling, feeling the slide of hot tears down his face. Before he could do anything about it, her face was in her shoulder and he was crying, pain crippling his entire body. He lifted his chin to catch his breath and saw Severus staring at the pair of them, his hand over his mouth.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moving on is just a mirage - how can you move on when a piece of you has disappeared?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contents / Warnings: Angst, language, bereavement, mentions of past alcoholism, unhealthy relationship.

Ron thought he'd known what it was to age overnight. It had seemed that way when Fred had died but he knew differently. It had been three weeks since he'd learnt of Harry's death and that was twenty-one nights – mostly sleepless – in which he'd had to age. He felt exhausted. A continual slew of pity, tears, anger, shouting, loss and emptiness which had been too much from day one, but Harry was a public figure and, as much as Ron hated it, so was he. He thought the only way it could have been worse was if they'd come out as gay together and announced they were eloping to a tropical island to live together alone.  
  
A flash of memory stopped him in his tracks. Harry beneath him, writhing, a sweaty mess – face screwed up in pleasure.  
  
A banging on the door chased it off again. They seemed to come and go when he least expected them, half-choking him with grief before it really had the chance to register.  
  
“Would you like me to get that?” Severus' question was quietly put compared to the thudding on the door.  
“Leave it.” Ron made a face. “Probably just another reporter”  
  
He accepted the mug of tea that Severus handed him with a grateful sigh.  
  
“I could go out there and give them a peace of my mind,” Severus suggested half-heartedly.  
“Yeah and take a piece out of his backside with your favourite spell.” Ron shook his head. “I don't need you being arrested, thanks very much.”  
“Nobody would know. I'd be discrete.”  
  
Ron took the opportunity to waylay any murder by trapping Severus under his feet as he sat down. Severus hissed and nearly slopped his tea everywhere. Ron didn't move.  
  
“The last thing we need is for them to get wind of the fact that you're staying here.”  
“Ashamed of me?” Severus asked curtly. “Keeping me under lock and key?”  
“Not ashamed of you, but hiding you away for as long as I can to not give the papers any more fuel for the pyre? Absolutely.”  
  
Severus nodded in agreement and sipped at his tea. “How are you feeling today?”  
“Like shit,” Ron answered truthfully. “You?”  
  
Severus' reaction to the news had surprised Ron. The older wizard had been visibly hurt by Harry's death and Ron hadn't expected that. He realised, during one of the long twenty-one sleepless nights, that he was incredibly selfish if he thought that he was the only person crushed by Harry's death.  
  
And he _was_ crushed, despite his first-hand anger. He was still angry, too, but it was all jumbled up in one mess of emotion. He counted himself lucky that Severus was there to prop him up. Once he'd pulled his head out of his backside, he'd been there in return.  
  
Harry's death had dragged the past up for everyone, and Severus was not immune to it. Ron had caught him looking over something which he'd quickly stuffed away. He guessed it was something to do with Lily, but he hadn't pushed it. He didn't want to do anything to jeopardise the relationship they'd rebuilt.  
  
The doorbell rang then and Ron jumped, spilling his own tea.  
  
“Fuck's sake!” he moaned loudly.  
  
Severus pushed his feet off his lap.  
  
“No, you're not going out there! I won't bloody lose you too!” Ron insisted.  
“It's not a reporter,” Severus said hurriedly.  
“Eh? How do you know?”  
“They never ring the doorbell, do they? Always bang it like they bang their poor, unfortunate partners – hard and fast and far too noisily.”  
  
Ron snorted to himself as Severus disappeared into the hallway. He moved to the window and twitched back the curtains slightly. The street was seemingly clear, but then, as his stomach rumbled, he realised it was lunchtime.  
  
He heard hushed conversation on the doorstep and frowned when he picked up a female voice.  
  
“Ron?”  
  
The door closed and there were approaching footsteps, and Ron nearly dropped his tea when he saw Ceri step into the sitting room.  
  
“Hey you,” she said softly. “I'm sorry to just drop in. But work's been insane without...”  
“Me and Harry,” he finished for her with a nod. “Sit down. D'you want a cup of tea?”  
“I haven't really got time. I, uh... I thought maybe you could do with something nice, so...” She pulled a glass bottle out of her bag and handed it over. “I have a friend who makes his own mead and it's good. And it was the only thing I could find in my office even suitable as a gift. I came straight here from the office.”  
  
Ron took it from her and held it up to read the label. “Thanks. We finished off the last of our stock last night and neither of us wanted to go out. Now we don't have to.”  
“Glad to help,” she said with a crooked smile.  
  
Severus stepped into the room then and Ron saw Ceri's eyes slide to him and then she looked down at her feet.  
  
“Your brother told me you were back together,” she said quietly. “I'm happy for you, Ron.”  
“Yeah. We uh... after you gave me the right information, we found each other again. And we're catching up on lost time.”  
  
She smiled but he could tell she didn't mean it. He also saw that she was put off by Severus' presence.  
  
“Severus. D'you mind if Ceri and I...?”  
  
Dark eyebrows rose and Severus stared at him. _What, you want me to leave you alone with the woman you slept with?_  
  
Ron stared back. _Yeah, I slept with her. But I won't start humping her now._  
  
“Of course,” Severus said courteously. “Let me know if you need anything.”  
  
They waited until his footsteps had retreated upstairs before they looked at one another again. Ron thought it was a good thing that Severus was so far away when she threw herself across the room and latched on around his neck. She held him so tightly that he couldn't breathe and when she finally pulled back, her eyes were wet.  
  
“I'm so sorry, Ron. About everything.”  
“I am too.” He sniffed slightly. “But there were things that... I found out more, Ceri. It was Harry.”  
“Harry what?”  
“Harry that separated us.”  
“How?”  
“He stopped the messages that Severus sent to me from getting through. He hid the evidence that Severus was in the country. He admitted it.”  
“And Severus didn't think to come looking for you?”  
“When there was no answer, he thought I'd abandoned him. Like I thought he'd abandoned me.”  
  
Ceri blinked a few times and then exhaled. “Fuck.”  
“Yeah, I know.”  
“Does anyone else know? Did he... did he say anything in his note?”  
“Didn't even fucking say sorry.”  
  
She exclaimed with something which made even Ron wince.  
  
“Sorry,” she added guiltily. “I just... I don't understand why on earth you'd do that to someone that you supposedly loved?!”  
“I don't either.” Ron shook his head. “I'm swinging from blind rage to heartbroken and back again about fifty times a day.”  
  
She finally released him and reached up to wipe her eyes. “It all makes sense now.”  
“What makes sense?”  
“Why you're hiding away from the media. Hermione is out there, giving impassioned speeches and you're nowhere to be seen.”  
“Well... with Severus...” Ron shrugged. “I don't want to give them any more ammunition. And to be honest, I'm afraid that I'll tell them exactly what I think of their bloody Saint Harry if they catch me at an off moment.”  
“I think that's wise.” Ceri sat back down. “What are you going to do?”  
“What is there to do?” Ron drifted back to the window to check outside. “I don't want to ruin anybody else's memory of him. Bad enough that mine's so fucked. And Severus'. I guess I've just got to learn to deal with it and let it go.”  
“And are you going to be able to do that?”  
“I haven't got a fucking clue.” He laughed to himself dryly. “I don't think it'll be any time soon.”  
  
There was another sigh and Ceri fell back in her seat. “Well, that's kind of why I'm here, Ron. I'm getting pressure from up high to ascertain when you plan to return to work.”  
“Harry only three weeks ago,” Ron asked, dismayed.  
“I know, and I've told them this. The whole team has said they're struggling to cope and nobody expects you to be back in ready to fight crime. Well... nobody on our level does. But we're not in charge, and they are. If you don't want to talk about it now, I'll give them some bullshit and we'll meet again in a few weeks.”  
“I don't know,” Ron answered honestly. “I've not given much thought to it. I mean... it's work, and I'd had enough before I took the leave... but Harry was so much of work for me. I'm not sure if I'd be able to...”  
“You were under a lot of strain and I knew it. We spent so much time together...”  
  
Ron smiled at her. She smiled back.  
  
“I'll tell them you're not ready. And that you've been given medical advice to avoid contact with work for at least another month.”  
“Thank you, Ceri. For everything.”  
“I've not done anything.”  
“You helped me to find him again. And that's everything.”  
  
Her eyes brimmed again with tears and she sniffed. “I know that everything's been horrible the last few weeks, but you really do look much better.” She wiped her eyes. “Colour in your cheeks, sparkle in your eyes again. I'm glad.”  
“I know. Severus is... I've been lucky to get him back in my life. A lot has changed for us both.”  
  
She smiled sadly and stepped back. “And hey, without your perfectly plump backside in my face all day, I've even started seeing someone. I say seeing... I mean we've had one dinner together and I'm not sure if he likes me at all, but... you know. I'm getting there. But you're hell to get over, I don't blame Severus for looking so serious all the time.”  
  
Ron laughed. It felt good.  
  
“You should come over for dinner when everything's settled down.”  
“Oh, sure.” She laughed too and stood up. “Because that wouldn't be awkward. But maybe we could meet for a drink, just the two of us. Share some old memories. It's been great working with you Ron.”  
“I didn't say I was leaving...”  
“Yeah well, you never know. I had an exciting knock on my door the other day and nothing could come of it, but if it does...” she shrugged.  
  
Something emotional began to ache at the thought of her not being there when he decided to go back to work.  
  
“I've waited long enough, Ron. I need to move on.”  
“I know.” He nodded. “Doesn't mean I wouldn't miss you.”  
  
It looked as though he had choked her sufficiently. She nodded, headed backwards into the hallway and turned for the door. She looked over her shoulder and smiled at him one last time before disappearing. Ron leant against the wall and closed his eyes.  
  
It seemed like people he cared about were walking away from him too often.  
  
***  
  
“Sooner or later, we are actually going to have to cook,” Severus said thickly, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “We can't live off takeaways forever.”  
“No. It's starting to get embarrassing when I enter the shop, they know this order by heart.”  
  
Ron sucked some grease off his finger and sighed contentedly. A heady late summer evening was floating through the open windows. He smelt honeysuckle, like just before he'd learned about Harry.  
  
“Thanks for giving me some space with Ceri,” he said finally, leaning forward and putting his plate on the coffee table. “I don't think she's your biggest fan.”  
“Well, if all she knows about me is that I apparently abandoned you, I'm not surprised. I didn't want to intrude. This is your house, after all.”  
  
Severus set his plate on the arm of the chair.  
  
“It's my house...” Ron echoed. “But I want you to feel at home. I just thought... with what happened just before we... you know, that I should give her the respect and time that she deserved. She was close to Harry too. She must be grieving.”  
“Was it odd, seeing her again?”  
“You mean because the last time I saw her I had my face in her cunt?”  
“Oh, Jesus.”  
“What? I did!” Ron cried, but did concede that perhaps he'd had too much mead.  
  
“I don't particularly want to think of you like that, Ron.”  
“You seemed to get quite a kick out of it at the time.”  
“Yes but that was then and this is now, and things are different.”  
“Sorry,” Ron muttered sulkily. “I had my face in her nether regions. Better?”  
“Hardly.”  
  
Severus got to his feet and collected their dirty plates.  
  
“Are you going to storm off in a strop now?” Ron asked, suddenly tired.  
“I'm not storming anywhere.”  
  
Ron didn't speak as he heard Severus stomp into the kitchen and drop the plates in the sink. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back. The smell of the honeysuckle was starting to make him feel sick.  
  
He wondered why he had goaded Severus by reminding him of the fact that he'd slept with a woman just before their reconnection.  
  
“Do you want another drink?” Severus called from the kitchen.  
“No, I'm good.”  
  
Ron got to his feet, suddenly feeling restless. He passed through into the kitchen and slipped his arms around Severus' waist from behind. He rested his chin on his shoulder.  
  
“I'm sorry.”  
“What for?”  
“Being a twat.”  
“Having a past doesn't make you that.”  
“Rubbing your face in it does,” Ron pointed out.  
  
Severus hummed non-committally and turned the tap on.  
  
“Leave that,” Ron whispered. “It can wait.”  
“I like to get it done.”  
“No, you do it because you had two years to fill that space after dinner where we would have been together. We're together now, so leave the washing up and come and sit in the garden with me.” Ron suddenly found himself desperate for fresh air.  
“Sit where?” Severus called after him as Ron pulled open the back door to the tiny, half-wild garden which accompanied his house.  
  
It was very little, but any green space in the city was welcome and Ron liked it enough to give it the obligatory trimming spells every now and then, and sometimes he even sat in it.  
  
 _And drank beer. With Harry. My brothers. The lads from school._  
  
He swallowed on a dry throat and yanked open the door to an awkward, poky space which he supposed was some sort of larder. In it he kept his alcohol and on the bottom shelf an assortment of old blankets. Blankets they'd used on nights just like this one, because there was no way Ron would have bought any garden furniture – he couldn't, otherwise there wouldn't have been anywhere to move.  
  
He grabbed some and headed out, enjoying the feel of the cooling grass beneath his bare toes. He shook out one of the blankets and settled it on the ground. He reached for the other and realised there was a dirty great spider sitting menacingly on the top.  
  
“Fuck!” His scream was wholly unmanly but with his heart racing and his skin prickling, Ron didn't particularly care.  
  
“What? Ron! Ron?” Severus flew out into the garden, brandishing his wand. “What is it?”  
“Spider,” Ron breathed, rubbing his chest.  
“Are you fu-”  
  
Severus seemed to think better of finishing his question. He marched over and used his wand to fling the spider over the nearest wall.  
  
“Thank you,” Ron said feebly, dropping down on the opened blanket.  
  
Severus simply stared at him for a few moments before turning his back and disappearing back into the house.  
  
Ron groaned into his hands. In the past Severus had shown very little tolerance for his arachnophobia. At one point just before it had all gone wrong, Ron was half convinced that the man was bringing them into the house just to distress him – a notion which seemed ridiculous sitting there in the garden, after everything that had happened.  
  
He couldn't imagine this Severus – this new, improved Severus – hurting him purposefully.  
  
The older wizard reappeared with the bottle of Mead Ceri had bought and two glasses in his hands. To Ron's surprise hooked over Severus' arm was his radio, the one he had somehow managed to keep hold of from the war. That radio had seen him through some of his darkest days both when he was a teenager and when he was without Severus. He watched patiently as Severus awkwardly knelt down onto the blanket, setting down the bottle, the glasses and the radio. Ron kept quiet as two drinks were poured and Severus deftly tuned the radio to a local Muggle station and kept the volume low so that only they could hear it.  
  
Ron picked up one of the glasses and sipped at it, looking around at their peaceful surroundings. Absolutely nothing to do with him, a climbing rose had crept over one of the walls and spread an array of beautiful blooms over the bricks. A few bees lazily flew from flower to flower. He could hear traffic in the distance and smell the smokiness of outdoor cooking from nearby. The gardens closest to his were quiet, though, and he knew they were unseen and would remain undisturbed.  
  
Knowing that he leant over and kissed Severus softly on the mouth. He tensed and looked like he was going to protest, but he took a deep breath instead and relaxed his shoulders. He even managed a mostly-convincing smile.  
  
For the first time in three weeks, Ron found it easy to return it. He fidgeted, aligning himself with the blanket. He took a few deep gulps of Mead and then laid down, resting the glass on his belly.  
  
“C'mere?”  
  
Severus hesitated, as though about to protest that men like him did not stretch out on blankets to watch the setting sun with their lover. Ron thought it would have been fair if he had, because he had never known Severus to be particularly yielding or sentimental, but they were very clearly alone, and he smiled to himself as Severus laid down beside him with a pained groan.  
  
Since Harry's death he'd been suffering from neck pain. Ron hadn't mentioned it, but he thought it was pretty ironic that the injuries sustained giving Harry the last knowledge he needed to win the war had resurfaced following his death. He had kept his mouth shut and provided massage after massage, rubbing until his fingers were numb and his wrists were screaming.  
  
Ron held his breath to better hear the sounds of the garden from on the ground. He could hear the bees, still buzzing, the traffic, laughter nearby and Severus' breathing. It was even and calm and reassuring, Ron realised. He'd spent a lot of time awake at night listening to it. He sought Severus' hand and smiled to himself as their fingers laced together.  
  
“Why haven't we been out here before?” Severus asked quietly. “It's... lovely.”  
“Didn't have you down for nature man.”  
“Please, a tiny box garden in suburbia isn't exactly _nature_ , Ron.”  
“It's more nature than either of us have seen for a good few weeks, given that we didn't exactly explore the delights of Romania, did we?”  
“Fair point.”  
  
Ron stretched out and crossed his ankles.  
  
“Life is strange, isn't it?”  
“How d'you mean?” Ron asked cautiously. It was unlike Severus to muse anything aloud which wasn't about the stupidity of the Wizarding population.  
“I just... a few months ago, I was dejected and preparing to enter the next phase of my life alone... and now I'm here with you again, so much has changed. I feel almost an entirely different person. How can that happen so quickly? That you barely even notice that everything is different.”  
  
Ron hummed his agreement. “It always does go too fast when you're having fun. When you're happy. The miserable times last forever.”  
“We're miserable now. Or we're meant to be.”  
“I'm in bits, don't know about you.”  
“I'm not doubting your grief, Ron. Far from it. But because you are here, this is bearable. I think I'd be right in saying that you're holding up under this because _I_ am here?”  
“Very true.”  
  
Ron reached out and set his Mead down in the grass before rolling over and crowding into Severus' side. They kissed again, meady and ungraceful. Ron reached up and stroked Severus' narrow forehead with his thumb; he let his longer fingers creep up into the man's hair.  
  
“I'm not just 'holding up' because of you,” he whispered. “I'm still _here_ because of you.”  
“We cope, Ron. We cope when the worst happens.”  
  
Ron thought he understood the wry quirk of Severus' eyebrows more than he ever had before.  
  
“I know that this hasn't been... easy... for you.” Ron dropped his eyes to Severus' chest. “That this has dragged up the past and feelings that you... that you don't want to share with me.”  
“It's not that I don't want to, Ron, just that I don't feel you should be burdened with them. You have enough to deal with.”  
“What if I wanted to be, though? If I wanted you to share that stuff with me? I share everything with you.”  
“Really? Tell me, how many times exactly _did_ you sleep with Harry in the weeks before he died?” Severus deadpanned.  
  
It stung to hear his name and the subject matter so bluntly put, but Ron knew he deserved it and that he had to be adult about his response.  
  
“I can't remember. A lot. Severus, have you ever had the chance to be with someone who truly seemed to adore you? Who made you _feel_ something more than numb? I did. I used Harry and I feel fucking awful about it, but he used me too and he played me more successfully than a quaffle. We used each other. I can tell you about it if you want. I can tell you that he sucked me off under the shower – that shower, in there, that you used this morning. He was on his knees, mouth open, my cock on his tongue and he drank me like a fucking glass of wine.”  
  
 _Okay. So perhaps that wasn't the **most** adult I could be..._  
  
To give Severus his dues, he didn't explode as he once might have done. His distaste was evident in his expression but when he spoke again it was an even, measured tone.  
  
“Of course I've had that chance, Ron. I have you. And I'm not using you by any stretch.” He looked away. “But... the things you ask of me. They are things I have never shared with another person and to be honest, I don't see the point of saying things which will never reach the intended target, because she is long dead. It has taken me a long time to be able to accept what happened, and I fear that dragging it all up would just undo a lot of the good work I've done over the past few years in terms of healing and moving on.”  
  
Ron had to nod at that. He did understand.  
  
“What good would it do?” Severus whispered. “When we have a relationship tainted enough by one Potter?”  
“Yeah, seems as though we've both been screwed over by them.”  
“Or they were just... enigmatic enough to ensnare us both. Everyone. Everyone loved them and those of us who saw the worst of them, we're left in the cold because we cannot share the anger their worst created with anyone for fear of ruining the memory of them.”  
“Except each other.”  
  
Ron nodded and kissed him again, pushing further and further until he had his tongue deep into Severus' mouth and was kneeling on all fours over his body. It escalated quickly, either it was the mead or the heady summer evening stoking them into heat. Or it could have been the fact that they were in the garden and anyone looking out of the neighbouring windows would be able to see them. Either way, Ron didn't care about any of it --he just needed release.  
  
***  
The bedroom was stuffy when Ron woke up, a sudden switch in between sleeping and awake. There was no jolt. Nothing woke him. He simply suddenly opened his eyes in the dim fug of his room.  
  
He took a deep breath and exhaled it straight back out again, trying to make his eyes focus on his bedside table.  
  
The bed smelt heavily of sweat, a mixture of both his own and Severus'. He could smell Severus most strongly as his hand was trapped under his face, and the night before when the sex had been over and they were both finally sated he had stroked the older wizard's hair and scalp until he'd dropped off. They must have disentangled themselves at some point during the night because the last thing Ron remembered was dozing himself with Severus still in his arms.  
  
He turned under the duvet, flinging his hand out to grope for Severus, but he found the bed empty and cool on the other side. He sat up abruptly and stared around his bedroom, which had become more like _their_ bedroom. Severus' belongings were there. Clothes in the wardrobe; hairbrush on the top of the chest of drawers.  
  
Except when he looked, they _weren't._  
  
A quick glance at the bedside table showed him that Severus' wand wasn't where it usually rested. Neither were the reading glasses that he always refused to wear.  
  
He shakily got to his feet and stared around at the bedroom before heading downstairs. The bathroom was silent and, as he tripped down the last step, he saw that the hallway and kitchen were empty too. The living room was his last hope and he froze on the threshold and saw an envelope on the mantel piece.  
  
“No.” He hissed through his teeth. “No. NO.”  
  
He ripped open the letter with trembling fingers. He fumbled with the parchment and ripped it slightly before he could lift it up to read.  
  
 _'Don't panic.  
  
I'm not leaving you, but I have an urgent matter to attend to and I needed to leave straight away. I will be away for a few days and hope you can forgive me this absence. I don't want to leave, after last night was so special.  
  
I'll be back and please, please don't worry.  
  
I love you, and I will see you soon.  
  
Severus._  
  
Ron felt lightheaded as he staggered backwards and fell down onto the sofa. His heart was pounding and he was too hot. His breaths were shallow and no matter how hard he tried to deepen them, his lungs soon started to ache along with his burning throat and tearing eyes.  
  
He wondered if, as the last few minutes had shown, he would ever trust that Severus would not desert him.  
  
Blinking, a few tears fell and Ron closed his eyes to stop any further from dripping down his face.  
  
He didn't want to be alone. At moments like this in the past he'd sought Harry out. But he couldn't do that now, because Harry was dead and never coming back. He would never again suggest something childish to make Ron smile, never again take him to Muggle restaurants for the fun of it. Never make him another consolatory cup of tea again.  
  
There was no stopping himself from crying after that thought took hold.


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The damage is absolute and everywhere. But even in destruction, you can heal.

  
“Where do you think we go when we die?”  
  
Ron watched Bill splutter a mouthful of tea everywhere.  
  
In a moment of desperation and loneliness he'd sought out company in the form of his oldest brother. Despite the heat of the day outside Shell Cottage was cool and peaceful. As soon as he'd knocked on the door Fleur had excused herself and the girls and taken them out for a paddle. He and Bill were alone.  
  
“Did you specifically wait until I had a mouthful before letting that out?” Bill asked accusingly. He brushed the damp spots on his t-shirt. It was old and faded, clearly well-loved.  
“Sorry.” Ron smirked a little and then looked down at his own mug of tea.  
  
Bill grumbled a little before troubling to answer. “Maybe we go nowhere.”  
“But there are ghosts. There's that scary fucking veil buried in the Ministry.”  
“That's a one-way gateway though,” Bill pointed out. “You can cross into the land of the dead there, but there's no coming back. Who knows if it even _is_ a proper gateway? Maybe it's smoke and mirrors. Something to comfort the bereaved.”  
“Has it ever comforted you?” Ron raised his eyebrows.  
“Nope.”  
“Me either.”  
  
He drank some tea and looked out of the window. Severus hadn't returned yet. He'd forced himself to remain in the house waiting for him, but eventually by the end of the second day his grief and loneliness was starting to strangle him.  
  
Ron was angry that Severus had chosen that precise moment to leave him. An explanation, at least, would have helped soothe the loudest worries in his mind.  
  
“I think... I think Harry's with his family at last.” Bill nervously rubbed his nose. “At least, that's where I like to think of him. It helps.”  
“I guess.”  
  
Ron still didn't know how he felt about Harry's death – he was still wandering between heartbroken and raging, sometimes on the same level but more often at odds with himself and his feelings.  
  
“How're you doing?” Bill asked in a soft voice, clearly treading extremely carefully. “We've not seen much of you.”  
“I've not wanted to see anyone. Except Severus.”  
“I get that.” Ron waited. There was clearly more. “But we... we need to see you, Ron. Somehow you make the loss easier to bear.”  
  
Ron didn't believe that for a second. Ginny kept wincing whenever she laid eyes on him.  
  
“Or it does for me, anyway. To know you're still here. And Hermione. I know you want to make up for lost time with Severus, but don't forget us Ron. Please.”  
“I'm not forgetting you – I just don't know what to say to any of you!” Ron put his cup down and got to his feet. “And when I do, and I blurt out stuff like that and you all look at me as though I'm bonkers.” He shook his head. “I'm just coping how I know how.”  
“With Severus Snape.”  
  
They looked at one another. Ron hated that he found the same objection in Bill's eyes as had been there a few years earlier.  
  
“Not this again.” Ron glared at him. “No. Not again.”  
“Look, all I'm saying is we're your family, Ron, and we care about you very much.”  
“Do you?”  
“Yes!” Bill insisted. “And Severus... well, not being funny but where is he, Ron?”  
  
Ron had to turn away to hide what he felt on being asked that question.  
  
“Well, quite.”  
  
Ron heard him getting up and hoped he wouldn't try and touch him.  
  
“You don't even know where he is now, when you're grieving. When you need him most.”  
“I trust him.” Ron tried to make out something at the other end of the beach. “Perhaps against my better judgement, but I trust him, Bill and you're going to have to as well now. Because I'm not going through this shit again. We're back together, as far as I know for good. I'm not losing him again – it nearly cost me my life once before and I'm not doing it again. Harry's gone and there's nothing to stand in my way any more.”  
  
Bill didn't respond to that, which angered Ron further. When he turned around his eldest brother was wearing a strange expression.  
  
“Why would you say that?” his voice croaked with emotion.  
  
Ron swallowed nervously; he didn't want to see any form of grief from Bill. Not his big, strong, glamorous older brother.  
  
“D'you ever get the feeling there's something you're not being told?” Bill sniffed heavily. “I feel like there's some kind of secret I'm missing out on. And you know it, and Ginny damn well knows it, but neither of you are letting on. I think Severus knows it too. The way he kept glancing at you at the funeral whenever Harry was praised. As if he was waiting for you to explode.”  
  
The skin on the back of Ron's neck was prickling uncomfortably. He cleared his throat.  
  
“Bill. Sometimes, things are secret for a reason.” He felt for his wand, readying to flee. “And I don't think you really want to know what we know. Can you just trust me on that?”  
“What if I want to know?”  
“I'm telling you that you don't. You want the image of Harry in your head that you know, and love. You don't want to feel what I'm... what we're feeling at the minute.”  
  
He furiously blinked away some tears which had crept up on him. “I've got to go.”  
“Ron-”  
“I've got to go,” he repeated.  
  
And he knew where.  
  
***  
  
“Thanks,” he said gratefully, as Ginny pressed a cold glass of juice into his hand.  
  
If Bill suspected that Ginny knew what had happened between himself and Harry, Ron had to know if she did or didn't. He had to know what that meant for the long term plan of his life.  
  
“I know why you're here,” Ginny said. “I've been waiting.”  
  
Ron only had to take one glance at her to know that Bill had been right. He realised that he was not the only one who had been wearing a mask over the past few weeks because she had let it slip. She looked terrible – worse than he had ever seen her.  
  
“Gin...”  
“Don't,” she spat harshly. “I don't even really know why I'm angry at you. You weren't to know what he'd done or how he felt about you.”  
“What... what exactly do you know?” Ron asked hesitantly.  
  
He was very much to blame for the sex. He was no victim when it came to that. Ron refused to let Ginny believe that he was innocent in all of it. But she didn't answer and instead got up and picked a letter carefully hidden out of the bookcase. It was written on the same paper as Harry's other suicide note. She handed it to him and gestured that he should read it. Ron felt sick as he slid the parchment out of the envelope and unfolded it. This letter was messier. It was also water-stained in several places.  
  
He skim read. The words were more painful than those in the first letter had been, because they actually addressed what Ron had been afraid the first letter would. It went on and on, page after page: apologies, confessions, emotions.  
  
By the time he reached Harry's signature and kisses, he was crying again.  
  
“Shit,” he cursed to himself, looking down at his lap.  
  
At some point Ginny tugged the letter out of his grip but didn't speak to him. Ron sat and quietly cried to himself, knowing she was in the room but not where or what she was doing. He was too afraid to look.  
  
Eventually he managed to calm down enough to wipe his eyes. Ginny thrust a tissue box at him and he took a handful, mumbling his thanks.  
  
She sat down next to him. Her hands were clenched tightly together.  
  
“I can't look at you,” she whispered desolately. “I don't want to see you, Ron, and I don't want to see him. If you want the pictures, take them, they're all in a box in the fucking loft because I just can't look at his face any more.”  
“No.”  
“Take them.”  
“I don't want them.”  
“Neither do I.”  
“He was your husband.”  
“And he was your fucking lover,” she spat furiously. “You take them. You look at his face every single fucking day and cope with the weight of it all, because I can't.”  
  
He didn't want to reach out to her as she dissolved into tears. He somehow knew it wouldn't help.  
  
“I loved him,” he said, as quietly as he could. “I did. But not in the way he wanted me to. Not in the way you loved him, or in the way he loved me. I didn't know... and when he came to me, Ginny... god. I was at my lowest point. I took what he gave because he wanted me, and it felt... nice... to be wanted. As pathetic as that sounds.”  
  
Ginny blew her nose. “Not pathetic.”  
“Agree to disagree.”  
“I don't know how you're doing it... how you went to the funeral and didn't lose your mind with the anger at what he did. How he kept you apart from the person that you really loved. And I don't know how I'll ever be able to look at you again, for keeping me apart from the man that _I loved_ , even though you didn't always know. For being part of the reason that he's gone.”  
  
Ron closed his eyes and fought the nausea coursing through him.  
  
“I know it's not enough. But I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry.”  
  
He blinked up at the ceiling.  
  
“I think you should go.” Ginny sounded as if she were teetering on the edge – that everything had been leading to this point between them – and now she needed to shatter.  
“I don't want to leave you in this state.”  
“You're in a state too,” she pointed out. “We're no good for each other like this.”  
“I know, but-”  
“No buts, Ron. I need to not see you for a while. I'm sorry, but it's true. I need to not see your face because in your face I see his, see everything I fucking missed for _years_. And I know you're my brother but right now, I can't look at you, and I need you to go.”  
  
He knew how she felt. It was similar to how he felt when he looked at her.  
  
“I'll go. Just... don't be alone.”  
“Who else can I tell this to?” she laughed, a little maniacally. “Who else deserves to have their memories of him ruined?”  
“Would you rather not have known?”  
“I would give anything to go back and never open this letter. Everything has changed now, more than it already had. I can't unlearn this. I can't ignore the fact he'd been away from me for longer than I ever knew.”  
  
He could hear the hysteria mounting in her voice and knew he had to leave her before she started to properly rage. He was never the right person for her when she was in that place – he was too easily angered into returning it.  
  
“Go,” Ginny begged him.  
“I'm going,” he promised her.  
  
She watched him into the fireplace. She stared dolefully at him as he prepared to travel. It was her face that he saw last as he flew out of sight, engulfed in flames.  
  
He arrived in the grate of his living room in just seconds, but it could have taken forever. He slouched blindly towards the sofa and fell down on it in a heap. No matter how terrible he felt, though, he knew he had to do one last thing before he finally let himself feel what he'd been putting off since Harry's death.  
  
He sent a short Patronus to Bill, asking him to visit Ginny immediately.  
  
If any of his siblings could handle the truth, should his sister want to share it, it would be Bill. That great family pillar of sanity and strength. Ron dropped his wand and pulled a scatter cushion over his face, happy to hide.  
  
***  
Something was banging other than his head. Ron groaned as he opened his eyes to sunlight. He was beyond stiff. A glance at the clock on the mantelpiece told him it was nearly afternoon, which meant that he had been asleep for at least sixteen hours. And someone was desperately trying to get into his house.  
  
Muttering to himself, he rolled off the sofa and got unsteadily to his feet. He remembered there being a lot of mead, and a lot of anger. He was sure he'd figure out why his knuckles were sore later on.  
  
He tripped over the empty mead bottle and fell face first into the living room door.  
  
“Fuuuuuuuck,” he whined loudly. “Ow.”  
  
At least the drained bottle meant that Severus wouldn't drink it. Somewhere along the way the man was drinking again having given it up during their separation. Ron hated that somehow it had slipped past him and that, for all his talk of change, Severus had gone back to one old way almost immediately after their reunion.  
  
He'd had many an anguished conversation in his head that it seemed he was trouble enough to drive Severus to drink.  
  
He weakly reached up and felt for blood but thankfully there was none. Still, as he stepped into the hallway the house was swaying around him. He spent several moments wondering why the door wouldn't open when he'd forgotten to do anything with the locks. Eventually he got them all open with clumsy fingers and pulled the door open over his foot.  
  
“SHITTING FUCK.”  
  
He hadn't quite meant to bellow out his discomfort to the street, or so loudly into Severus' face, but he had. He cringed and sagged against the wall. Severus took one short look at him and stepped over the threshold, gently nudging Ron's injured foot out of the way so that he could shut the door.  
  
“I'm going to put the kettle on,” Severus informed him, picking up one hand and gently coaxing Ron towards the kitchen.  
  
Tripping over his own toes and swearing at the pain Ron went, desperately trying to piece together his actions of the night before. Severus deposited him at the tiny kitchen table and true to his word moved to the kettle. Ron rested his forehead against the cool tabletop and closed his eyes. He heard Severus leave the kitchen and climb the stairs, returning moments later. He thought he might have heard the chink of a potions vial on china. He hoped so.  
  
“Here. Are you still awake?”  
  
He grunted in response and gratefully sat up to take a sip of scalding tea. He tasted the potion immediately – the one Severus brewed himself to lessen the effects of hangovers.  
  
They sat in silence as he quickly made his way down the cup, until he had drained it and set it back down again. Then, as the room started to come back into focus, he looked properly at Severus for the first time. Other than looking tired and pinched about the eyes, he seemed unscathed. Unchanged.  
  
“Where have you been?” Ron asked hoarsely. “I was worried.”  
“I left you a note.”  
“Yeah, bloody cryptic much?”  
“I'm sorry. But I laid awake all night and I just... there was something I had to do, and I didn't think you'd be particularly receptive to it.”  
  
Interest piqued, Ron raised his eyebrows.  
  
“Later,” Severus assured him. “But first tell me what brought this on.”  
  
Ron sighed and rubbed his eyes with his fingertips. “I went and saw Ginny. She does know.”  
“She knows...”  
“Everything. Harry left her another letter. I saw it yesterday. And she pretty much told me she can't look at me now. Doesn't want to see me.”  
  
Severus' only response was a small sigh of his own and to lean back in his chair.  
  
“I didn't handle it well,” Ron advised pointlessly. “But then... I suppose it was a long time coming, and I'm glad you weren't here to see it.”  
“I'm not. I don't like the thought of you in that state alone.”  
“I'm still here, aren't I?” Ron shrugged and wished he hadn't. Everything hurt.  
  
Severus reached across the table and laced their fingers together.  
  
A nervous knot of tension Ron hadn't noticed in his chest suddenly loosened.  
  
“I don't know what'll happen now,” he admitted. “I couldn't leave her without someone... I asked Bill to go round and I don't know how much she'll tell him, if anything. If she does I can't imagine it'll stay secret for long and then...”  
“You think they'll all be unable to look at you.”  
  
Ron nodded miserably. “But... I've got you. And we had plans, didn't we? We were making plans before Harry died.”  
“We were. And we can fulfil them if you want to.”  
  
A squeeze gripped his hand and Ron, despite himself, found himself smiling.  
  
“Tell me where you went?” he implored, suddenly desperate to talk about something else.  
“I suppose it was a long time coming... and then with everything to do with Harry, I just needed to do it. I needed to call on some old acquaintances.”  
  
Ron waited for him to go on, but Severus stayed quiet, looking at their joined hands on the table.  
  
“I'm guessing it's somewhere you don't think I'll approve of,” he guessed.  
“Somewhere I absolutely know you won't approve of, and never did.”  
  
Thinking back to their past relationship, Ron tried to think of anything he'd particularly disapproved of – other than the drinking, the temper and the volatile nature of their life together.  
  
It dawned on him when he saw Severus' blatant anxiety that he'd forgotten something very big – or someone.  
  
“Oh god, you went to see Malfoy didn't you?”  
  
His disgust was so strong that he had to fight to keep his hand in Severus' own. He had never bothered to clear the air with Draco Malfoy following the war. Many had – he'd never felt the need to scour his conscience for the sake of it.  
  
But Severus had links to the family which Ron could not deny.  
  
“Something which happened... you were only sixteen at the time. It's been a millstone hanging around my neck getting heavier and heavier. With Potter's death came feelings I had buried. About him, about Draco. Narcissa and Lucius. They were once my friends and I am, though not publicly known, Draco's godfather.”  
  
Ron fought to keep his expression neutral.  
  
“And I made an Unbreakable Vow to look after Draco. I have been a useless godfather since the war ended. I wasn't much of one before.”  
“Hard to be helpful to a total dick,” Ron offered. “Sorry.”  
  
Severus ignored him and carried on. “And as I laid next to you, watching you sleep and just being thankful for the change in my luck, I wanted to reach out to him. Needed to. Somehow I felt it would help me process my grief over... over Harry.”  
  
Ron didn't miss the very pointed mention of Harry by first name, which Severus rarely used.  
  
“I know my relationship with him was complicated, and god only knows my relationship with his mother was even more so, but... his death has had a very profound affect on me, Ron. In the way I feel for you, in the way I feel about him... Lily... and Draco.”  
“So you went to see him? What happened?”  
“He slammed the door in my face.”  
“Ouch.”  
“It was... I expected it, truth be told. I left him a letter – his wife is quite pleasant, actually. The next day he replied, thanking me for coming but saying that he was not ready to... to see me. But that he would think on it and contact me again soon. So I moved on. I went to see Lucius and Narcissa... which was considerably more fruitful.”  
“Oh, Godric, I bet they were all over you with questions about us.”  
“They simply asked if I was happy. When I told them yes, they left the subject alone.”  
  
Ron immediately didn't believe that, but wasn't foolish enough to voice his doubts.  
  
“I did something then that I never, ever do.”  
“You've been busy, no wonder you look so tired,” Ron commented dryly.  
“I paid my respects at some graves. Important ones.”  
  
Ron had never known Severus to mourn graveside in all the years they'd been together.  
  
“It was time,” the older wizard said, shrugging slightly. “And I do feel better for it, truth be told. Something about the last few days has been cathartic. There was something in offering an olive branch to Draco which helped ease the pain of losing Harry after everything.”  
“I'm glad.” Ron was. He'd spent a great deal of his adult life not knowing how to help Severus Snape – so he was especially happy to see him helping himself for a change.  
  
“And now I'm here. With you. I didn't wake you up to tell you where I was going because I thought you'd rather sleep.”  
“You're not far wrong,” Ron admitted. He never wanted to discuss Malfoy – let alone in the middle of the night.  
  
The spiked tea had done its job and he felt much better than he had on waking.  
  
Overall he felt much lighter than he had for some days. He wasn't idiotic enough to believe it would last, though. He knew from experience that grief was conniving and cruel – it would grab hold when he least expected it.  
  
“I do have a business to run,” Severus said. “But I think that I could arrange some well-earned time away from it. If you are open to it, I suggest we go somewhere.”  
“Let's go,” Ron said immediately. “Anywhere.”  
  
His excitement was rewarded with a rare smile.  
  
“Where?” Severus asked.  
“Anywhere. In a heartbeat. Snap decision. Where have you always wanted to go but haven't been?” Ron demanded.  
  
Severus looked at him and Ron didn't miss the fact that his partner, his senior by twenty years, seemed lost at such a simple question. That he had never travelled for pleasure, only business to where he absolutely needed to be and nowhere else.  
  
“Let's start in London,” Ron said, stroking his thumb over Severus'. “And go anywhere we want from there.”  
“Are you really sure that you want to leave now, with things as they are with Ginny?”  
  
Ron wasn't sure what would be worse – staying in England and missing his family because he and Ginny couldn't be in the same room as one another, or being abroad and worrying about what they all thought of him. Being somewhere sunny with Severus had a massive edge on the first option.  
  
“You could do great damage, Ron, by thundering off.”  
“I'm not thundering anywhere. I'm doing what's best for myself, and my partner. I need some room to breathe – to go somewhere I've never been with any of them, to see where I am and what I want from life.” Ron shift in his seat. “I want to do that with you, if you'll let me. Make more plans. Be happy, if we can.”  
  
Severus stared at him with an unreadable expression for a moment, and then gave him another small, but plainly thrilled smile.  
  
“So let's go,” Ron said, grinning back.  
  
 _-fin-_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I've loved the angst of this, the abundance of sex, the way Ron gets what he wants back and intends to keep it forever. Thank you for reading. <3


End file.
